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REPORT OF EZRA H. 


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HEY WOOD'S DEFENSE 


. 
BEFORE THE UNITED STATES COURT, IN 
BOSTON, APRIL 10, 11 AND 12, 1883; 
TOGETHER WITH 


Judge Nelson’s Charge to the Jury, 


. Nores or Anrnony Comstock’s Carger oF CRUELTY AND 
Crime; Tracic anp Comic INcIpENTS IN THE 
Maticious, Savace Persecution, Sur- 
es FERED BY Mora. ScIENTISTS 

tA- tI 3 DevoTrp 0 


PRINCETON, MASS., A 


92 CO-OPERATIVE PUBLISHING CO. 


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REFORT OF EZRA H. 


YWOOD'S DEVEUSI 


BEFORE THE UNITED STATES COURT IN 
BOSTON, APRIL 10, 11 AND 12, 1883; 
TOGETHER WITH 


Judge Nelson’s Charge to the Jury, 


Nores or AnrHony Comsrock’s Career or CRUELTY AND 
Crime; Tracic anp Comic INcIDENTS IN THE 
Maurcious, Savace Persecution, Sur- 

FERED BY Morat Scienvisis 
DEVOTED TO 


SOCIAL EVOLUTION, 


And Other Interesting Matter. 


PRINCETON, MASS. 


CO-OPERATIVE PUBLISHING CO. 


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PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE, 


Though ‘‘Heaven’s high behest no preface needs’’ government raid on Citizen 
Right requires words in behalf of Liberty and Union which intelligent collec- 
tiveism promotes ; for the status of mutual freedom is imperiled the moment 
Personal Integrity suffers detriment. Beyond all other extant expressions of 
opinion Princeton Literature proclaims the American Idea, Liberty in Right; 
giving initiative to political, industrial, religious and social growth—it developes 
and incarnates Natural Law and Order on all lines of individual and associative 
enterprise, finding in Opportunity and Reciprocity essential guarantees of fruit- 
ful Peace and progressive Harmony. The coercive weight of majority despotism, 
the arbitrary spirit of war policies and the restrictive purpose of war-begotten 
legislation culminated in the stealthy procurement of Comstock’s ‘‘statutes’’ 
which, by invasive device, put a decoy God into the Federal Constitution, subject 
Thought to tyrannous supervision and fasten on hitherto comparatively tree 
States superstitious, arrogant, venomous Cen-orship of the Press and of Morals. 
The assault on Mrs. Woodhull, Messrs. Train, Lant, Dr. Foote,and many others 
revealed the savage purpose of Inquisition, startling Citizens to inquire if our 
liberties were irrevocably wrested from us. Though Mr. [leywood had held 
Free Love views, twenty years, they were tirst publishe.!, Jan. 1876, in Cupid’s 
Yokes which decrees SEXUAL SELF-GOVERMENT, demands immediate. unconditional 
yepeal of *‘obscenity statutes,’’ and znculcates the duty and necessity ef Citizens 
judginy for themselves whal is right in all matters of humin interest. The old 
church notion that man is the head of woman, that she is for his use and plea- 
sure, irrespective of what her mind and conscience teach, is a most revolting 
phase of the inquisiturial conspiracy, making. women insurgent wherever they 
sense the purpose of legalized terrorism, and especially moving Mrs. Heywood 
to resent barbarous imposition by incisive, persistent statement which has become 
notably beneficent. The logical assertion of Liberty which illumines Princeton 
Heights sheds light on every phase of Reform and opens paths out of dense reli- 
gio-political darkness; but alarmed usurpers ‘‘breathing out threatening and 
slaugzhter’’ struck against oracles of Truth. For alleged-mailing Cupid’s Yokes 
and f'rall’s Sexual Physiology Mr. Heywood was arrested, Nov. 2d, 1877, tried 
and convicted later, and, June 25th, 1878, sentenced by Judge Nathan Clifford, 
to two years at hard labor in Dedham Jail; but was unconditionally released by 
President Hayes, Dec. 19 following. Enraged by signal defeat Comstock broke 
in again upon the Princeton home Oct. 26, 1882,* seized and carried off Mr. Hey- 
wood who was again lodged in Charles St. Jail, Boston. Hereis the ‘‘complaint:”’ 

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, CITY a ds 
Boston, IN THE COUNTY OF SUFFOLK,§~” 

‘‘Anthony Comstock, of the City of Brookiyn, County of Kings, State of New York, 

* When Comstock came in, with presuming impudence he offered to shake hands; 
Mr. H. put his hands behind him, When the buby-girl, Psyche Ceres, trotted in, C. 
tried to coax her towards him; Mr, H. said ‘‘Don’t pollute her with your caresses,” 
Leaving ‘‘the prisoner’ in charge of Dep. U. S, Marshal Enos, avery gentlemanly 
officer, who apoligized for coming to Princeton on such business, C, crossed the com- 
mon for conveyance; as the team drove up Mr. H., stepping front to catch the driver’s 
eye, asked ‘‘Mr, Bliss is this your tree-will act helping kidnap a neighbor?” He in- 
stantly replied *‘This man is a stranger who called for a team; I not knowing whom I 
was to carry ;” Comstock blazed in ‘‘I should have arrested him and taken his horses 
had he not harnessed up;” (To officer Enos) ‘‘Put him in, put him in”—but there was 
no armed revolt or other attempted rescue! On the way to Holden depot Mr, II. suid 
to Comstock ‘‘Man after man has been to me to take the contract to kill you, but Citi; 
zens have talked the mutter over and concladed you are not worth the powder; if we 
make a martyr we want decent stock for it;” “Why did you, backel by two armed- 


» policemen, refuse to read your warrant and threaten to take ine, without coat or hat, 


from Nassau Hull, Nov. 2d, 1877?” Comstock replied “There were 250 men in thit Con- 


_ vention thut £ did not care to come in collision with!” Reach.ng Boston at2 Pp, M. Mr. 


H. was locked into a U.S. Court-room till 4 o’clock, not being allowed to communi- 


~ eate with friends to get bail, when they said ‘‘No one his come to bail you and we 


must commit you.” So, by a piece of purely gratuitous malice, for which Commis- 


- sioner Hallett and Dist. Att’y Sanger are respousible, Mr, H, was, needlessly, put and 


; 


kept in Jail forty-four hours! 


iv PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE. 


being duly sworn, deposes and says that he is an Inspector of the Post Office Depart- 
ment of the United States; that he is intormed and verily believes that on or about the 
tenth day of October, 1882, Ezra H. Heywood, of the town of Princeton, in the State 
of Massachusetts uforesaid, did unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly deposit or cause to 
be deposited in the mails of the United States, then and there tor the purpose of muail- 
jug and delivering a certain obscene, lewd and indecent book sand pamphlet, which 
said book and pamphlet was then and there known, called, and described by the title 
of Cupid's Yokes; and deponent further saith that 1 in the same package there was also 
a certain other obscene, lewd, and indecent book, paper, pamphlet and print, which 
said book, paper, pamphlet anddprint was then und there enclosed in @ paper sealed 
wrapper, and addressed as follows, that is to say: ‘J. A. Mattocks, P. O. Box 441, 
Nyack on the Hudson, Nyack, N. Y.’ against the peace of the United States and their 
dignity, and against the form of the statute of the said United States in such case 
made and provided.” The second complaint is drawn in the same form and charges 
the mailing of ‘‘acertain printed notice giving information whero, how, and of whom, 
and by what means a certain article designed and intended tor the prevention of con- 
ception might be obtained and had. This, witha certain obscene, lewd and indecent 
puper, print, ete., was then and there enclosed in a sealed wrapper, and addressed ag 
follows, that is to say: ‘Geo. Edwards, Nyack on the Hudson, Nyack, New York,’ 
avainst, ete.’ 
At the hearing before U. S. Commissioner Hallett, Nov. 23, Ass’t Dis’t Att’y 
Blodgett appeared for the prosecution, and J. I’. Pickering, Geo. W. Searle and J. 
Storer Cobb Esquires for tae accused. Lon. Hlizue Wright, A. E. Giles tsq., 
Lucy N. Colman, Mrs. Whittaker, Walter C. Wright, Li 1ey M.,J. Flora and 
Josephine 3. ‘Liiton, Vesta Vernon ‘anid Llermes S$) idney Licey woud, Be: ark. Tucker, 
Geo. Chainey, J. P. Menduin, F. S. Cabot, J. H. Swain, J. S. Verity, W. S: 
Beil, Prof. id ‘H.W. fo! 12y, "Mrs. Toohey, Arthur Hildreth, Geo. and W. C. 
James, A. C. Robinson, John N. Lee and others ‘stood up to be counted” for 
Free Spe ech. Anthony Comstock and David ti. Grezory were the prosecuting 
wilnesses; Mr. wallett held the accused for trial in $1,000 bonds, Eiizur Wright 
surety.* The bail in She for first ‘‘olfence,’? was $1,500; John. Llaynes surety. 


Affecting to conserve ‘‘order’’ by. learned pretense of ‘‘pure’’ purpose, church- 
state knaves ‘preface old rags with plush;*’ their whole treatment of moral ques- 
tions, in so far as le vislation. restricts Creative EK nterprise, isan attemyt to overs 
come "good with evil; the fact that persecution of liquor sellers, effort fo suppress, 
by violence, those whom temperance enthusia-ts cannot convince hy argument, 
Is SO ge enerally favored, reveals moral blindness if not sheer idiocy in legislators 
relative to prevailing evils. The uravely serious issues involyed in Love and Par- 
entage should be studied by every intelligent person; yet, for 2ivestejating these 

uestions, expressing honest opinions, stating facts, Citizens are now liable under 
United Slates ‘Jaw,’’ to 39,000 fine and ten years EL OE ea Since the publi- 
cation of Paine’s “Ave ot Reason’? and ‘‘Coimmon Sense”? no book has enecoun- 
tered such virulent intolerance as has Cupid s Yokes, during the seven-years 
persecution which Social Evolutionists have suffered from malicious ecclesiastic- 
ism invading Civil Right; yet, as Roger Williams developed Soul Liberty and 
thereby a: sured r aligious Treedom to moden } tates; as Thomas Paine summoned 
priest-king craft to the bar of conscientious Judgme nt, so Free Lovers call human 
beings to moral order in Sex Life, bring repro lactive instinct and domestie yven- 
tur: within the domain i pgnaay and Moral Obligation. In order to hasten 
thorough investigation of the chronic evils which pt ulpit and press, church and 
state are powe rless t» remove; to nerve revolt against tyrannous legislation which 
imperils all the time-honored guarantee: of Li! harty , aad move Citizens to stead- 
fastly exercise their Natural Right to freedom of Thought, Speech, Press and 
Matis this report of a notvble Trial here »y becomes permanent part ’of recorded 
history and of the literature of demveratie ev olivons 

* Matters had proceeded so far when Mr. Ueywood was called upon to stand up. 
This he declined to do, saying that he retused to take any part in an assault upon him. 
seit. The commissioner thereupon committed him, and left the room in a great pas- 
sion, remarki: g in an undertone that he woul tnot have any such tom-foolery in his 
coutt, He, however, 1n response to the requests of counsel, made two more endea- 
vors with Mr. Mey wood, and these being equally unsaceessfal, he was removel ia the 
custody of a deputy marshal. One more chance, however, was viven him. The comn- 
missioner again took his pl: ice In court, Mr. Ieyw ood was brou, tht in by the Hane 
marshal, the business of giving bail was conclided, and he was released. After re 
ceiving numerous congratul: tions upon his narrow eseipe from the prison cell, Mr. 
Heywood lett the court with his friends.— Fate's eles Monthly. 


INDICTMENT AND TRIAL, 


Assisted by Comstock and Dist. Att’y Sanger the Grand Jury in- 
dicted Mr. Heywood who was called for trial, Jan. Ist, 1883; but, 
his counsel having withdrawn, the case was allowed to go over to the 
March term in order to give him due time to prepare a defense. Tues- 
day, April 10, he was put on trial,—Chas. Almy Jr., Ass’t. Dist. Att'y 
for the accuser, Mr. 1. for himself, his family and the People, Judge 
T. L. Nelson of Worcester presiding. The Jurors were Wm. E. Cole 
(Foreman), John A. Beard, of Sutton; Albert J. Bixby, Edgar L. Fay, 
of Lowell; Ilenry S. Elder, Alonzo Gooch, of Huntington; Roger 
Cunningham, Nathaniel B. Fisher, of Walpole; Horatio G. Hammond, 
of Wayland; Stephen Hatheway, of Marblehead; Geo. W. Cole, Henry 
Wilkins, of Chelsea. In order to disclose the animus of accusers and 
pretake his battle-ground of defense Mr. Heywood put these questions 
to the Jury :— 


1. Are you in favor of depriving Massachusetts Citizens of their liberty, property or 
life on fictitions, manufactured testimony? 

2. Do you believe Gulsehood anil treachery either justifiable or necessary to promote 
sound morality or alvance the iuterests of pure and undefiled religion? 

3. Have you ever bought liquors, cigars, syringes, bo>ks or other vendible ecommo- 
dities to entrap dealers therein, or to secure evidence aguinst then to convict them of 
any real or imaginary crime? 

4. Have you ever signed the names of women to letters, represented yourself as a 
woman or girl, worn women’s clothes or ever feigned, forged or otherwise used other 
than your own lawful name in any transaction whatsoever? 

5, Do you believe that materrity is a matter concerning which women should be con- 
sulted, thut they should do therein what seems to them right and best; or do you think 
it right or expedient to subject women to forcible Qnpregnation agiinst their reason, 
conscience or voluntary choice? Ln other words are you opposed to Rape? 

6. Assuming the doctrines and principles of Cupid’s Yokes and Leaves; of Grass to be 
erroneous do you think or any wise believe that their authors or venders are guilty of 
any immoral or criminal act or intent simply because their options or styleof writing 
differ from your own, or from those of other industrous, peaceful and law abiding 
citizens? 

7. Are you personally acquainted with, engaged in business for, a party to vice- 
society prosecutions, or any otherwise associated with @ supposed person reported to be 
Anthony Comstock, alias Mrs. Farnsworth, alias J. G, Phillips, alias Ella Bender, 
alius E. Semler, alias Annie E, Ray? 

8. Assuming ihe delendant to be a Free Thinker or Free Lover holding compulsive 
union between the sexces !o be immoral and impolitic ave you under the influence of any 
religious, moral or social opinions or prejudices which will tead to prevent your acting 
impartially as a juror in the trial of this case? 

9. Have you ever visited houses of ill-fume, hired women or girls to show their nude 
persons io you or done other immoral or disreputable things to get evidence against 
alleged wrony-doing, to promote morality, secure your own eternal salvation, ortor any 
other purpose, which you claim to be honorable, worthy and necessary? 

The indictment contained four counts as follows:—- 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, District Court of the United States of America, for 
the District 01 Massachusetts. Ata District Court of the United states of America for 
the District of Massachusetts, begun and holden in Roston, within and for the said 
District, on ihefirst day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight han- 
dred aid cighty-two. ‘Lhe Jurors of the United States of America, within and for the 
District of Aissachusetts, apon their oaih present: 

'hat heretofore to wit, onthe tenth day of October in the year of our Lord one 
thousand eight hundred und cighty-two, ut Princeton, in the said district of Massachu- 
seits, Ezra 1. Mey wood did anlawlally and knowingly deposit and cause to be deposit ed 
in the mails of the United States, then and there for mailing and delivery a ceriain, 
obscene, lewd, and liscivious hook ,called ‘Cupid's Yokes; or the Binding forces ot 
Conjugal Life,” which 3aid book was then and there non-mailable matter, us declared 
by Section one of an Act of Congress approved on the twelfth day of July in the year 
of our Lord one thousan | eight-haundred und seventy-six, which said book, , . was so 
grossly obscene, lewd, and lascivious that the same would be offensive to the court 


6 FREE SPEECH. 


here, and improper to be placed upon the records thereof; wherefore the jurors afore- 
said do not set forth the same in this indictment; which said book was then and there 
enclosed in a certain paper wrapper... addressed and directed as follows, that is to 
say: “J. A. Mattocks, P.O. Box 441, Nyack on the Hudson, N. Y. Nyack, N. Y., 
against the peace of the United States, ete. 

And the jurors. .. further present that, . . on the tenth day of October... a certain 
obscene, lewd, and lascivious print, that is to say a certain slip of paper containing 
printed matter, at the head of which said print were then and tbere printed the words, 
“The Word Extra;” and the contents of which said print were then and there non- 
mailable matter... and were so grossly obscene, lewd, and lascivious, that the same 
would be offensive to the court and unfit anid improper to be placed on the records 
thereof, ete. 

And the jurors... further present that...on the eleventh day of October... a 
certain printed advertisement... was then and there contained in a certain 
printed paper called The Word, and. . . gave information how and by what means a 
certain article designed and intended for the prevention of conception, that is to say 
a certam syringe called The Comstock Syringe could be obtained which said adver- 
tisement was then and there non-mailable matier. .. said paper called The Word was 
then and there enclosed in i certain puper wrapper. . . addressed and directed as fol- 
jows: “Geo. Edwards, Nyack on the Hudson, N. Y. Against the peace of the United 
States, ete. y 

And the jurors... further present that. ..said advertisement began as follows: 
“The Comstock Syringe tor Preventing Conception, sent prepaid on reccipt of price, 
$10.” And in the said paper calicd The Word, in the same page and in the same col- 
umn thereof... was then and there an enumeration of certain articles, and lower 
down on said page and coliunn said advertisement then and there contiued as tullows: 
“Any of the above sent postpaid on receipt of the price by the Co-operative Publishing 
Co., Princeton Mass.” Aud that in the part of the adve:tisement just quoied the 
words ‘‘any ot the above,” were intended to refer and did refer to the said Comstock 
Syringes in the part of the advertiseinent first above quoted, and the said part last. 
quoted was then and there intended to give information... how an article designed 
and intended tor the prevention of conception, to wit, the suid Camstock Syringe 
couid be obtained, etic... Against the peace of the United States and their dignity, and 
aguinst the form of the statute of the said United States in such case made and pro- 
vided. A True Bill. Leander J. Wing, Foreman of the Grand Jury; Geo. P. Sanger 
United States Attorney tor the District of Massachusctts. 

The other grand jurymen given were: Michael J. McGrath, John H. Chadwick, 
Edward UH. McCormack, Eugene C. Belcher, Boston; C, T. Page, Clarksburg; Seth 
Sprague 2d, Hiram D, Howard, Hingham; Wm. G. Davis, James Il. Temple, Hopkin- 
ton; HW. A. Woodworth, Thatcher Merriam, Lawrence; Lyman Lawrence, Lexington; 
Nathaniel A. Moses, Luther Turner, Medford; Levi B. Alien, John N. Gates, John N. 
Burnett, South Hadley ; Charles H. Rockwood, Lovel F. Gage, Lyman A. Trumbull, 
Warren; Charles Ll. Cleveiand, J. M. Rice, Worcester. 


MR. ALMY’S OPENING REMARKS, 


May it please your Honor, Mr. Foreman and Gentlemen:—You are to pass on 
questions which have been pa-sed on before, but you have heard nothing as yet 
in this case. We do nothing here unauthorized by law; as you know, we have 
a statute concerning the counts in the indictment just read to you, of date July 
12th, 1876, Chap. 186, page 90; this constitutes an amendment to an earlier 
statute; and is as follows :— 

Every ubscene, lewd, or lascivious book, pamphlet, picture, paper, writing, print, 
or oiher publication of un indecent character, and every article or vther thing designed 
or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion, and every article 
or thing intended or adapted for any indecent or immoral use, and every written or 
printed ecard, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind, giving 
information directly or indrectly, where, or bow, or of whom, or by what means, any 
of the hereinbctore mentioned matters, articles or things may be vbtained or made, 
aud every letter apon the envelope of which, or postal card upon which indecent, 
lewd, vbscene, or liscivious dclineations, epithets, terms or language may be written 
or printed, are hereby declared to be non-muailable matter and shall aot be conveyed 
in ihe mausils, nor delivered from iny post office nor by any letter-carr.er; and any per- 
son who shal knowingly deposit, or cause tv be depoxited lor muiiing or delivery, 
unytiing declared by this section to be non-mailuble matter, and any person who shall 
kuowiugly take the same, or cause the same to be takea fiom the mans, for the pur- 
pose o! circulating or disposing of, or of tuding in the disposition of the same, shall be 
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall for each and every offence be fined not less 
than $100 nor thun more $5,000, or imprisoned at hard labor not less than one year 
nor more than ten years, or both, at the discretion of the court. 


FREE SPEECH. T 


The first count charges the sending of a certain book known as ‘‘Cupid’s 
Yokes,’’ and it will be before you when you consider the evidence. That bouk, 
the government will claim to you comes int» the designation of obscene, lewd, 
or lascivious, as contained in the statute. At the proper time the court will give 
you instruction as to the matter of law as to what is meant by lewd or lascivious 
literature. And the matter is pretty wellsett'ed; it has been laid down in the 
Circuit Courts of two of the States in this Stuie and New York, and in others 
doubtless, the question as to what is meant by t ese words is well considered. I 
think that after this first case there will be no doubt in your mind,—that it will 
be conceded that the principal question to you gentlemen, will be whether it does 
come within those restrictions. But what there is to be said about that will more 
vroperly be said after the book is before you and certain parts read to you as im- 
moral and indecent. 

Another count of this indictment refers to a thing which is entitled ‘‘The Word 
Extra,’’ and which is described in this indictment and undoubtedly is obscene ; 
and [ think the evidence will satisfy you that this was sent through the mail. 
This consists of two extracts from the poems ofa man who has been greatly ad- 
vertised by those poems, Walt Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass.’? Now the ques- 
tion comes before you, as to whether that is unfit to be sent through the mails, 
these two poems—one addressed ‘To a Common Prostitute,’? and another ‘‘A 
Woman Waits for me,’’ the two most objectionable points in the book. These 
you will find yourselves gentlemen, for they are the only ones coming under the 
instructions of the Court to know whether these are obscene, lewd or lascivious; 
you will read them. 

The remaining charge is that he sent as the statute describes ‘‘any article or 
thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception, or any written or 
printed card, circular, book, advertisement or notice of any kind giving informa- 
tion directly or indrectly where, of whom, and by what means any of the things 
above mentioned may be obtained.’’? We charge that he sent a certain adver- 
tisement, printed in a certain paper called Taz Worp, which paper I suppose it 
is not to be seriously denied, is published by this man; that in that paper there 
is a certain advertisement which described a certain instrument for the preven- 
tion of condeption, and that it stated where and from whom it might be obtained. 
That is the third charge. Your attention will be called to the articles: They 
speak for themselves. 

Judge Nelson threw out ‘‘The Word Extra’”’ because the allegation 


in the indictment that it ‘‘is too grossly obscene and lewd to be placed 
on the records of the court’? is untrue. He asked Mr. Almy to say 
on what passages in Cupid’s Yokes he based the same charge. Mr. 
Almy replied that he had not yet selected the ‘‘obscene’”’ portions; 
“‘Then” said Judge N. ‘‘you must read the whole book before we pro- 
ceed further.”?’ Mr. A. stumbled along through it noting the ‘‘ob- 
scene”’ passages but did not find the ‘‘worst’’ (best) ones! Judge 
N. said, ‘‘The Court is robust enough to stand anything in that book”’ 
and out it went! ‘But your action involves acquittal of the defend- 
ant on the two first counts of the indictment”? said Mr. A.; ‘‘Can’t 
help that,’’ replied Judge N.; ‘‘I do not rule on alleged obscenity but 
simply say the allegations in the indictment that the works are too 
obscene to be spread upon the records of the court is not true.’? In 
the discussion between Mr. Almy and Mr. Heywood on these points, 
Mr. H. read Emerson’s famous letter to Walt Whitman and quoted 
many other distinguished writers to show that the charge of ‘‘ob- 
scenity”’ in Leaves of Grass is groundless. Post Master Gen. Howe 
ruled that the book is mailable ; if the whole is mailable then any part 
is; the two condemned poems were reprinted, without note or com- 
ment, simply to resent rude, vulgar censorship; and to vindicate free- 
dom of the press and of the mails invasively denied by ‘‘obscenists.’’ 
The highest exponents of United States law pronounced Cupids Yokes 
not obscene. : 

The trial proceeding on the 3d and 4th counts of the indictment the 


8 FREE SPEECH. 


government called as w:tness a person who gave the name of Anthony 
Comstock; Mr. Lleywood objected: ‘‘Besore this witness testifies the 
Court should know who he is; a person disreputably known by many 
different names sometimes says he is Anthony Comstock ; but 7 is not 
certain whether this person 1s Anthony Comstock, Ella Bender or some 
other one of the score or more alleged persons infamous in vice-socicty 
prosecutions ; a ten-dollar check would not be paid him by any Boston 
bank without identification; | submit, your Honor, that the District 
Att’y should produce some intelligently reliable man or woman who 
can say that this much ‘“aliased’’ person is the one he now claims to 
be before he is allowed to swear away the liberty of Massachusetts 
Citizens.”’ Judge Nelson listened good naturedly, but allowed wit- 
ness to testify that, in answer to a Ictter he sent Mr. Heywood, he 
received back by mail a copy of Oct. Worp (1882) containing the 
indicted advertisement and produced a registered letter receipt signed 
by Mr. H. On cross examination Comstock admitted he did not sign 
his own nave but wrote three different letters to Mr. H., signed ‘‘J. 
A. Mattocks;’’* said ‘A. F. Ducret’’ and ‘‘Geo. Edwards” were men 


* Vice creating, crime promoting, violation of law, falsehood and treachery are 
Comstock’s methods to enforce what he calls ‘‘morality ;’’ in 1877, pretending to 
be a ‘*Free Lover,’’ he wrote Mr. Il. as follows:— 

Squan Village, N. J.:—Press on as you are going and be sure in the end justice will 
be done you. Itisn long lane that hasnoturn, You have labored hard, but many 
eyes have followed your efforts. Truly Yours, E. Edgewell. 

Now a ‘‘Labor Reformer’’ he lies, deceives, decoys, this wise:— 

Nyack-on-the-Hudson, N. Y., Sept. 26th, 1882; (fo Co-operative Publishing Co.,) 
Gents: —Enclosed I send you tor following articles—THE WorpD 1 year 7d cents; An- 
thony Comstock by D. M. B., 25; Marriage and divorce by J. C, Cheney, 23; An Open 
Letter to Jesus Christ, 5; 1 Doz. Leaflet Literature, 5; amount $1.50. What would 
Mr. Heywood charge to come to this place and lecture? There is a good many labor. 
ers here and a liberal propensity is marked. I have been having acopy of THE WorD 
sent me by a friend and as it comes very uregular thought [ would subscribe for the 
same. I saw and heard Heywood when in New York sometwo years ago. He may 
not remember me. Please address plainly, J. A. Mattocks, care J. H. Mattocks, P. O. 
Box 441. P.S. Commence subscription for THE WorpD with last number. 

Nyack-on-the-Hudson, Oct. 3d, 1882, Sir:—Your favors duly received. You say you 
will come and lecture here for $15 and expenses. When will you come? What will be 
the expenses, what are your club rates? You did not name them. I send 75 cents for 
THE WorD for A. F. Ducret of this place. Also for Cupids Yokes and balance in tracts 
on labor reform, Please excuse pencil and haste as Iam ina great hurry. Yours, J. 
A. Mattocks, Box 441. 

Nyack-on-the-Hudson, Oct. 7th, 1882, E. H. Heywood, Princeton, Mass., Sir:—I sent 
you an order a few days ago, which I presume you will fill in due time. You mayadd 
to that a sub for THE Worp for George Edwards and a'so two more copiesof C. Yokes. 
What is Mr. Tucker’s address and his first name? is it “Franklin” or Francis;” could 
you give his address. In writing me please write all letters, not postals as I do not 
care to have curious persons in Uncle Sam’s employ know about my business. J. A. 
Mattocks, P. O. Box 441. 

These are the basis of what was called ‘‘evidence’’ against Mr. H. Elizur 
Wright said no country Justice would hold a man for stealinga sheep on such 
‘‘proof’? as Hallett held him for trial. Here is one more of Comstock’s ‘*moral’? 
‘*Christian’’ letters :— 

Washington, D. C., March 18th, 1871, Dr, Selden, Dear Sir:—I am an employee of 
the Treasury and have got myself into trouble. I was seduced about four months ago 
and am now about three months gone in the family way... I am a poor clerk, get 
only sixty dollars per month, have to keep a widowed mother and crippled sister so 
that I send you all, in fact more than I can spare, hoping that you will send me some- 
thing that will relieve me. Now dear doctor send it right away and send it by mail 
for I do not want any one to have a breath of suspicion about the matter. For God’s 
suke do not disappoint a poor ruined and forsaken girl whose only relief will be suieide 
if you failme. Yours faithfully, Miss Anna E. Ray. 

Please send package by mail to “A. E. R.” Box 260 Washington, D. C., and have 
it secureiy sealed.—Anthony Comstock’s Career of Cruelty and Crime pp. 1028-29. | 

This is one of the several letters, (on Treasury note paper #llegally obtained), 


FREE SPEECH, 9 


in his employ; had never used more than ten fictitious names; felt 
himself to be a Christian; had boasted of the number of his victims 
who died under his treatment; denied that he had hired girls to show 
their nude persons to him; said he never had prosecuted any one for 
mailing Trall’s “Sexual Physiology ;’’? claimed to be upright and hon- 
orable always, that many statements made about him were slanders on 
spotless character. The cross-examination was mitute, protracted, 
thorough, leaving this distinguished exponent of ecclesiastic ‘‘morals’’ 
unmasked to the philosophic eyes of many amazed observers. David 
Ii. Gregory, Postmaster at Princeton, identified Mr. Heywood’s hand- 
writing, but could not, on cross-examination, say that the indicted 
“\Worp’’ ever passed through the mail, there being no postmark onthe 
wrapper ; different wrappers were shown him, in part of which Worps 
were delivered to subscribers by hand, and in others sent by mail; he 
could not tell which wrappers had Post Office sanction and which not; 
said he had known Mr. Ul. from boyhood, lived near him and his 
family, saw them often and knew nothing whatever against his or their 
character. Here the government rested its case. 


Mr. JiEYwoop's PPENING PTATEMENT. 


Your Honor anp GENTLEMEN :—By considerate action of the Court my trial is 
limited to the 3d and 4th counts indicting me; if not generally apparent to-day, 
in the near future it will be clearly seen, by all honest students of this transaction 
that, not 1 am on trial, but parties responsible for bringing me in on alleged 

.**second offence’’ are nowand here arraigned at the bar of Intelligence. That 
such works as Leaves of Grass and Cupid’s Yokes are not only not obscene, but 
steps towards rational Health, vigorous Purity, enlightened Morals and fruitful 
Sobriety is well-known to all scientists, scholars and jurists whose opinions are 
worthy of attention. The Dist. Attorney’s charges are plausable, from the stand- 
point of preconceived guilt, but questionable in the light of correct opinions and 

ecoznized principles of Liberty, at whose tribunal you Gentlemen, [ and all other 
citizens, whether governmenta! officers or not, must finally appear. [am ‘‘indicted 
for indecent publication ;*’ so Theodore Parker was ‘‘indicted”’ in this very court, 
28 ycars ago this month; Stephen S. and Abby Kelley Foster were ‘‘indicted’’ in 
your Honor’s own city, Worcester; they were arraigned for ‘‘constructive trea 
scn;’? Lam hunted for ‘‘constructive indelicacy,’’ There were intelligence and hu- 
mane sense enough in Dist. Att’y’s offices, then, not to press Parker and the Iosters 
to trial ; ultimate events proved that the ‘‘indicted’’ persons wrought and suffered 
for essential law and order while their prosecuting accusers were the actus offend- 
ers. What ‘‘treason,”’ ‘‘infidelity’’ and ‘‘blasphemy’’ were then, ‘‘indecency”’ 
and ‘‘obscenity’’ are now—catch-words used by perverted authority to help sinis- 
ter Inertia suppress, by violence, criticism of established sin. While I had the 
honor to devote youth to anti-slavery evangelism under lead of Parker, Garrison, 
and the rest, more than once reading extracts from this book (Leaves of Grass) at 
Mr. Parker’s desk in Music Hall, where I served as occasional preacher, my work 
in persisting Evolution, is none the less ‘‘pure,’’ worthy because, in later tragic 
years, lam subjected to fierce persecution for discovery and proclamation of 
‘ruth. 

Though the books are out of the case [ am held here liable to fine and imprison- 
ment for alleged mailing an advertisement relative to preventing conception, under 


written to New Yorkers one of whom, Dr J. Bott, Comstock snared and impris- 
oned two years, causing his death and ineffxble suffering to his family! In June 
1878 Comstock went to an ill-famed house on Green St., N. Y., hired young girls 
to go into a closed room, disrobe and show their nude persons to him and another 
alleged ‘‘mau’’ then seized and imprisoned them for ‘‘indecent exposure!’’ Ben- 
nett’s ‘*Life’’ of Comstock, i3 full of revolting facts taken from records of Courts 
Yet heis an approved member of an Orthodox Church, a petted ‘‘saint’’ in 
Young Men’s Christian Associations, employee of successful Republican Admin- 
istrations, rides free over all the mail routes of the United States, using vast power 
of the Federal Government for savage persecution of opinions. 


10 FREE SPEECH. 


a statute to suppress ‘‘obscene literature;’’ as syringe is not ‘‘literature’’ the of 
fence alleged is the same, ina more subtle sense, as if the indictment stood on four 
legs insteau of two. Are the words in the advertisement, the words which pro- 
claim an opinion, assert the right and duty of women to voiced discretion in ma- 
ternity, ‘‘obscene?’’ Was this statute ever meant for the base use it is degraded 
toby Me. ** Alias’? Comstock, my clandestine accuser? Is not this whole proceed- 
ing (excepting of course the part of your Honor and Gentlemen who sit here as 
Impartial jurists) sheer, wanton, malicious persecution? The deiense has a wide 
fiel'l to traverse ; whether the government has or has not proved its charges; the 
spirit and purpcse of Inquisition which, during eleven years, has borne with 
merciless severity on editors and pubiishers investigating social evils; *tobseenity”’ 
as a question of fact and as a question of law; whether United States authority ts 
so weak that it must stoop to the low devices ofa spy, a decoy, an accomplice-in- 
crime to conserve morals ; whether vulgar intolerance and superstitious malice are 
better guides to social purity than conscientious endeavor a know Right and 
realize wt ; whether treachery, deceit and vulgar cruelty become honorable hecause 
masked in sacred forms of religion, and drilled to lie to get money into the . 
‘tagent’s’’ pocket for ‘‘Christ’s sake ;’’ whether ghosts of mediaeval barbarism of 
which vice-society pimps are ‘‘mediums”’ should longer haunt the sacred precincts 
of American law; whether guarantees of Freedom conceived in oriental Inspira- 
tion, conserved in fundamental Law which assures and ennobles Oider in occi- 
dental States, have quite lost liberating expression ; whether illegal, irresponsible, 
malevolent Censorship of the Press and of Morals. whose unscrupulous savagery 
finds no parellel in slavocratic despotism, must permanently eurse the descend- 
ants of Otis, Adams, Franklin and Jefferson ; whether there is any path out of pre- 
vailing evil,--ignorance,unchastity ,intemperance,destitution, squalor—other than 
for each to work out his or her own salvation on lines of Individual Liberty, in- 
forming Reason and mutual Integrity,—these and kindred questions I shall endea- 
vor to examine with searching, inclusive vision, and to discuss here, under arrest, 
with a fullness and in a manner not unpleasing to the Court, or unworthy the 
subtle, all-concerning and ineffably serious issues presented in this case. 

Mr. Almy held with Judges Clark and Benedict that alleged ‘‘ob- 
scenity’? must be decided by the jury irrespective of the spirit and 
purpose of authors or what ‘‘experts’’ may say about it; but Mr. Hey- 
wood, in order to show malicious persecution, called A. E. Giles, 
Lucy N. Colman of Syracuse, Benj. R. Tucker, Lydia M. Warner, 
Joseph P. Sheafe, Cordelia Cheney, H. M. Fisher of N. H., J. H. 
Swain, Rev. J. M. L. Babcock, J. W. Stillman Esq., Prof. J. H. W. 
Toohey, Prof. A. P. Barnes, P. A. Beaman, proprietor of the Wachu- 
sett House, and Geo. L. Bliss, of the Prospect House, townsmen and 
neighbors in Princeton, Lansford Harrington, farmer and old school- 
mate, H. B. G. Hazzen Esq., and other witnesses for defense, all of 
whom showed the alleged ‘‘offence”’ groundless, that Mr. H.’s char- 
acter is unimpeachable, his work and purpose honorable,—however 
much they might dissent from his opinions on some points. Dr. T. 
Palmer of Fitchburg, Mrs. Elmer Lincoln of Raynham, EH. B. McKen- 
zie, L. S. Putnam, J. Q. A. Clifton, M. A. Warren, C. M. Nye, T. P. 
O’Lally, J. S. Verity, W. C. and Geo. James, Wm. B. Wright, L. D. 
Grovesner, N. G. Parker, Lucy, Flora and Josephine Tilton, Vesta and 
Hermes Heywood and many others appeared in behalf of Liberty as- 
sailed. Mr. Sheafe, Mrs. Cheney, Mr. Fisher, Messrs. Beaman and 
Bliss who know Mr. Heywood’s family well, all explicitly disproved 
slanderous imputations on the Princeton Home implied by repeated 
raids on its hard-working, blameless occupants. Mrs. Colman, Mr. 
Tucker and Dr. Swain, who were present in the lower court, Nov. 28, 
showed that Comstock lied there or later; he then said, in reply to Mr. 
Pickering’s questions, that ‘‘Ducret’’ and ‘‘Edwards’”’ were the names 
of noreal persons ; and that he had used twenty or more fictitious names, 
the records of the court showed that, in Mr. Heywood’s trial before 
Judge Daniel Clark, Jan. 1878, ‘‘Sexual Physiology”’ was indicted on 


FREE SPEECH. 11 


Comstock’s complaint of ‘‘obscenity ;’? many present knew that he ar- 
rested Bennett in Nov. 1877 for mailing it; Mr. Heywood produced 
Dr. Foote’s copy of Comstock’s own book ‘‘Frauds Exposed” in which 
he admits and attempts to justify his ‘‘naked’’ outrage on Green St. 
Girls. Ass’t Ati’y Blodgett was brought up and Comstock recalled 
by Mr. Almy to repair a badly damaged reputation for veracity which 
all saw seriously needed ‘‘salvation.”” Among the witnesses for Mr. 
H1.’s defense in 1878 were Elizur Wright, Rev. Dr. Bartol, Horace 
Seaver, Mrs. S.A. Vibbert, J. P. Mendum, Martha Williams, L. K. Jos- 
lin, 8. H. Morse and many other leading exponents of intelligent char- 
acter; yet Judge Clark excluded the whole of them! Judge Benedict 
did the same when O. B. Frothingham, A. J. Davis, Mr. Giles and a 
score of others appeared to vindicate Free Thought, Speech, Press and 
Mails assaulted in D. M. Bennett’s person. Unlike Clark and Benedict 
who were prosecuting attorneys rather than judges, Judge Nelson’s 
rulings were intelligent, impartial and firm for fair-play. Mr. IL. called 
Postmaster E. S. Tobey of Boston, Rev. Minor R. Deming, Sec. Y. 
M.C. A., P. M. De Wolf, Liberal book-vender and Henry Chase, agent 
N. E. Vice Society, to show conspiracy against Civil Rights, the vice- 
mongers having recently ‘“‘ordered”’ Boston booksellers to cease offer- 
ing Leaves of Grass; Mr. Tobey conceded that he is a partisan in the 
illegal, infamous censorship imposed on New England by the handful 
of lascivious cranks who constitute the darkness-loving vice-crowd. Sev- 
eral times Mr, Almy tried to show that argument for abolition of mar- 
riage is ‘‘obscene,’’ that Free-Love opinions have ‘immoral tenden- 
cies ;’’ but this Clark-Benedict frenzy was promptly checked by Judge 
N. who held the trial to the alleged obscenity issue, as a matter of fact 
and of law, irrespective of other considerations so fruitful in convic- 
tions heretofore under Comstock’s interpretation of the statute. 


Mr, fteywoop’s ADDRESS TO THE JURY. 


Your Honor anp GenrLemen:—In the drift of human affairs now and 
then an event relates persons so inseparably to general interests and 
destinies that individual actions become memorable for their good or 
ill. - Your Honor, appointed to hold the scales of justice in equitable 
balance to weigh the issues presented, and you, Gentlemen, selected 
from the community at large to sit here as Jurors, by your interests 
and duties as Citizens, and by your oaths, your sworn deference to 
the Source of Truth are bound to consider, not merely what the 
frenzy of an accuser or the perversity of an attorney may urge, but 
what is Right in the Nature of Things, illustrated in thefacts of this 
case. On trial here for no fault of my own; for alleged acts which all 
the world will applaud when intelligent enough to understand me; for 
exercising the legal, constitutional, Natural Right of every American 
Citizen to acquire and impart knowledge in the gravest concerns of 
‘human beings; for seeking the causes and suggesting remedies for the 
evils, crimes, miseries which afflict unintelligent life,—this is the 
‘“offence’’ alleged in the indictment which holds me now arraigned. It 
is a strange, an amazing event to occur here in Boston in the light of 
these latter days of the 19th century! This is not March 2d, 1660, 
two hundred and twenty-three years ago last month when, for the 
“crime’’ of having an intelligent conscience, of being a Quaker, the 
lifeless form of Mary Dyer swung from the old elm on yonder com- 
mon; it is not 1635 when, amid the rigors of midwinter, Massachusetts 


12 FREE SPEECH. 


Bay-Colony Puritans banished Roger Williams who found hospitality 
for his divine doctrine of Soul Liberty in the savage inhabited wilder- 
ness which afterwards became the State of Rhode Island; it is not the 
dark reign of religio-political fanaticism which strangled spirit-mediums 
called witches,—twenty persons in Essex Co. alone being murdered in 
the three months intervening between Jan. 9th and Sept. 23d, 1692; 
it is not 1835 when Abolitionists were hunted for their lives in these 
streets and conspiring tyrannists tried to suppress anti-slavery publi- 
cations as ‘incendiary literature ;’’ or 1850-60 when citizens, judging 
the law and the facts, rose in righteous wrath against the Fugitive 
Slave Bill, treading the wicked statute under foot and founding the 
Republican Party on justly broken United States law! Oh no, Gentle- 
men, it is in the year of supposed civilization, 1883, right here in the 
seat of anti-slavery power, in the brain of the Union, the home of 
Winthrop, Hancock, Adams, Quincy, Everett, Webster, Sumner, 
Andrew and Garrison, that a Massachusetts Citizen, once before im- 
prisoned for his Faith, but unconditionally liberated by intelligent ex- 
ponents of law and morals at Washington; a reformer who, after hav- 
ing given his earlier years and energies to free the United States 
Government from the curse of chattel slavery, still seeks causes and 
the cure of prevailing evils for no reward but the approval of his Con- 
science, is put on trial for persisting in his thankless yet greatly 
needed work! No one even pretends that I have ever injured any 
body; that I have invaded the rights of person or property in the near- 
est or remotest sense; no citizen of my native town, and life-long 
residing-place, Princeton; no person in Worcester, Boston, Providence 
in this or other States conversant with my lectures or published writ- 
ings enters this complaint; a mercenary government spy, an informer, 
a spotter, masked behind false names and decoy letters, an ecclesiastic 
inquisitor from a foreign State, a censor of opinions from steeple- 
pious Brooklyn comes over here to regulate Massachusetts morals! 
Years after his conception-abortion business was kicked out of New 
York courts, when his scandalous methods and practices are loathed by 
‘awyer and bench all the way from here to St. Louis, this man is again 
assisted here in his diabolical work of persecuting citizens for the 
‘misdemeanor’ of knowing a little more than he does relative to 
physiological cthics! 

Althouzh the District Attorney, by signing this indictment, (there- 
by conv: ‘cting and sentencing himself whatever becomes of me), has 
pronounced ine guilty even before trial, I have reason to think that 
you Gentlemen, and your Honor, are strictly unbiassed in your offices 
here, and that you will give this case intelligent and impartial con- 
sideration, But before coming to the counts of the indictment and the 
so-called evidence put in by the District Attorney to support his 
groundless charges, | wish to indicate to you that the views and pur- 
poses of the clect of reformers called Free Lovers, of whom I have the , 
tonor to be one, are included and indorsed by accepted principles of 
jaw, order and morals. It is only because the nature and tendency of 
our doctrines, of our Ideas relative to morals, law, and government are 
misunderstood by many that prosecutions which are simply persecu- 
tions are stil possible anywhere in these States, by sanction of United 
States Law. Not that lam bound to prove to you, or convince you 
of the truth of my opinions, Evangelical Christians say Unitarian and 
Universalist doctrines are untrue, ‘‘immoral’’? in their tendencies; 


FREE SPEECH. 13 


Roman Catholics hold all Protestants alike ‘“‘infidels;’’? Republicans 
call Democrats ‘copperheads,’ ‘“‘communists,”? ‘“rummies;’’? Demo- 
crats say Republicans are black, physically and morally; yet all these 
citizens speak, print and mail their opinions unmolested. They do 
this for the good reason that Ist it is their Natural Right to have and 
impart knowledge to those wishing to receive it; 2d because the Fed- 
eral Constitution recognizes and guarantees that right, as follows:— 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or pro- 
hibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the 
press ; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the goy- 
ernment for a redress of grievances.—Art. J. Amendments. 

The Constitution of every State has the same guarantee, our own 
Massachusetts Bill of Rights assuring Liberty in these cogent words: 

All nen are born free and sg adic have certain natural, essential, unalien- 
able rights among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending 
their lives and liberties ; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property ; 
in fine that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness... No subject 
shall be hurt, molested or restrained, in his person, liberty or estate for worship- 
ping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own con- 
science ; or for his religious profession or sentiments; provided he doth not dis- 
turb the public peace or obstruct others in their religious worship.—Ar¢s. J-L/. 
The Liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a State; it 
ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this Commonwealth.—Art. XVJ. 

The Constitutional guarantees assuring religious freedom include 
moral freedom, for morals are a part of religion and th2 greater in- 
cludes the less. What Luther was to the Pope in the 16th century 
Free Lovers are to the present unsocial system—viz. Protestants 
exercising our legal, constitutional, Natural Right of private judg- 
ment inmorals. Not only are we not bound to prove our opinions 
true but it is our right to hold all prevailing opinions false, and seek 
the utter abolition of marriage, church, state, every extant institution. 
In the impressive, inspired, irresistible words of the Declaration of In- 
dependence :— 

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that 
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among 
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights 
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the con- 
sent of the governed ; that when any form of government becomes destructive of 
these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new 

overnment, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers 
insuch form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness, 

The Massachusetts Bill of Rights adds :— 

The people alone have an incontestible, unalienable and indefeasible right to 
institute government ; and to reform, alter or totally change the same, when their 
protection, safety, prosperity and happiness require it.—Art. Vil. 

It is our legal right to abolish the government itself, it is our con- 
stitutional right, by proclamation of opinions, to destroy the Constitu- 
tion and improvise new and better guarantees of freedom and order if 
we can do it. In his indictment the District Attorney says Lhave hurt 
“the peace of the United States and their dignity.”” The Constitution: 

Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against 
them or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person 
shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same 
overt act, Or on confession in open court.—Art. IIl,, Sec. rf : 

An offence, against statutes, as treason against the United States, 
consists in an ‘‘overt act,’? some hurt of life or property, to protect 
which from invasion Danicl Webster well said is the true office of gov- 
ernment. The District Attorney is mistaken; no crime, no offence 
has been committed in this case, except the crime, the repeated out- 


14 FREE SPEECH. 


rage of dragging me in here again without any just cause; the crime 
of conspiring with an official spy, with a positive fraud, a foreign in- 
vader against the liberties of Massachusetts Citizens. Had not the 
crime-creating, decoy-letter, woman-seducing, Religion-perverting 
spirit heavily obsessed officials in the lower court such an indictment 
as this would be no more possible than an indictment against witch- 
cra:t, or anti-slavery publications as ‘‘incendary literature.’? Quite 
too loug have officials taken Comstock’s ideas of law and gospel as 
their rule of conduct, and thereby become partisans in savage persecu- 
tion of opinions he has inflicted on many innocent people. South- 
rons insisted that chattel slavery was the corner-stone and crowning 
guarantee of the Republic; while their interpretations of law prevailed 
the Constitution was what Garrison called it—‘‘a covenant with death 
and an agreement with hell.’? The larger intelligence voiced by 
Spooner, Sumner, Gerrit Smith, Seward and Lincoln headed law to- 
wards emancipation. 1 ask you, Gentlemen, and your Honor, to in- 
trepret the statute, under which 1 am held here, in the interest of 
Liberty and Progress rather than in the spirit of savage retrogressio" 
it has hitherto served. The indictment says ‘unlawfully and know- 
ingly” | have violated order; 1 deny it; rather 1 have credited Con- 
gressmen who voted for this statute with not being fools or knaves; 1 
try to believe and act in the faith that the object of law is to assure 
freedom and progress,—not to suppress them. The informing prin- 
ciples and animating purpose of Common Law; intelligent, civilizing 
impulses; positive knowledge of our own rights and conscientious as- 
sertion of and respect for the equal rights of others,—all true manifes- 
tations of order and progress move citizens to be a law unto themselves, 
work out their own salvation, and imperatively require them to inter- 
pret statutes in favor of Progressive Enterprise rather than of repress- 
ive Inertia. 

Had I invaded Citizen Rights; had I hurt person or property; had 
I committed adultery or fornication, forged notes, robbed a bank or 
shot a President, there might be some excuse for this prosecution. 
They do not quite say ‘‘crime’’ but charge misdemeanor which Burrill 
says ‘‘is an indictable offense not amounting to felony ;’’ Bouvier says 
“The term applies to all offences for which the law has not provided 
a particular remedy ;’”’ Blackstone says ‘‘The word crime is made to 
denote offences of a deeper or more atrocious dye, while small faults 
and omissions of less consequence are comprised under the gentler 
name of misdemeanors.’? Noah Webster says misdemeanor means 
‘ill behavior; evil conduct; fault; mismanagement;’’ Worcester sees 
‘‘An offence; misconduct; bad management.’’ Yet whom have I 
ofiended’ What real person ever charged me with misconduct even? 
A fictitious person, one ‘‘J. A. Mattocks,” alias ‘‘George Edwards,” 
alias ‘‘A. F. Ducret,”’ alias ‘Mrs. Farnsworth,”’ (in search of asyrin 
to prevent conception), alias ““E. Edgewell,”’ alias ‘‘Ella Bender,”’ 
(wanting ‘‘Hooper’s Female Pills,’’) alias ‘‘Anna E. Ray,” (three 
months on with child wanting to secure abortion), alias “Jerry Bax- 
ter,’’ alias ‘‘E. Semler,’’ alias ‘(Joseph B. Andrews,” (‘‘buyer of rare, 
rich and racy books and photographs,’’) alias ‘‘J. G. Phillips,”’ alias 
“G. Brackett,’”’ alias “S. Bender,” (probably father of “‘ Miss Ella Ben- 
der’’ who wanted ‘Female Pills,’’) alias Anthony Comstock is the 
accuser by whose perverse distortion of a well-intentioned statute I 


FREE SPEECH. 15 


am again raided, dragged from home and chosen work and held guilty 
of an imaginary offence! Not clever students, useful manual laborers, 
recognized scientists, but a mercenary spy, skulking behind a score of 
aliases, seems yet to give law and morals to officials here who are re- 
sponsible for this indictment! There is one realoffence of which I am 


cuilty ; it reveals the reason and motive which have impelled this vin- 
dictive censor to dog my steps during all these inquis-torial years. 
Jan. 1, 1876, 1 wrote the following which appeared in pages 10-12, 
of the first edition of Cupid’s Yokes, then being put in type :— 

The facts of married and single life, one would suppose, are sufficiently start- 
ling to convince all sericus-minded people of the imperative need of investigation ; 
especially of the duty of young men and women to give religiously serious atten- 
tion tu the momentous issues of Sexual Science. But, on the threshold of good 
intent, they are met by established ignorance forbidding theim to inquire. It is 
even thought dangerous to discuss the subject at all. In families, schools, ser- 
mons, lectures, and newspapers its candid consideration is so studiously sup- 
pressed that children and adults know nothing of it, except what they learn from 
their own diseased lives and imaginations, and in the filthy hy-ways of society. 
Many noble girls and boys, whom alittle knowledge from their natural guard- 
ians, parents and teachers, would have saved, are now, physically and morally, 
utter wrecks. Kegarding Anthony Comstock, the real author of the ‘tobscenity 
law,’’ Lam unable to entertain a favorable opinion ; in a letter addressed to Hon. 
CU. L. Merriam, M. C., dated Brooklyn, N. Y., Jan. 18, 1873, he says: ‘*There 
were four publishers on the 2d of last March ; to-day three of these are in their 
graves, and it is charged by their friends that I Worniep THEM TO DEATH. Be 
THAT AS IT MAY, | AM SURE THAT THE WORLD IS BETTER OFF WITHOUT THEM.’’ This 
is clearly the spirit that lighted the fires of the Inquisition. Appointed special 
supervisor of the U.S. Mails; by sectarian intolerance constituted censor of the 
opinions of the people in their most important channel of inter-communication, 
he is ebiefly known through his efforts to suppress newspapers and imprison edi- 
tors disposed to discuss the Social Question. In Nov. 1872, he procuied the 
arrest and imprisonment of Victoria C. Woodhull and her editorial associates for 
publishing a preliminary ventilation of the ‘‘Brooklyn Scandal,’’? which after- 
wards filled American newspapers. Subsequently, ke caused the incarceration, 
during seren months, of George F. Train for publishing in his newspaper (The 
Train Ligue) certain quotations from the Christian Bible, touching the same 
*s andal’’? which the implicated churches would hush up. As I write this a note 
from another subject of his vengeance, John A. Lant, dated Ludlow St. Jail, New 
York, Dee. 30, 1875. says: ‘‘Judge Benedict to-day sentenced me to imprison- 
ment in Albany Penitentiary one year and six months. I will endeavor to send 
you a copy of the sentence. _ It is worth to us all it costsme.’? Comstock's rela- 
tion to Mr. Laut, as to Mrs. Woodhull and Mr. Train, is that of a re/zgio-mono- 
maniac, whom the mistaken will of Congress and the lascivious fanaticism of the 
Young Men’s Christian Association have empowered to use the Federal Courts to 
suppress free inquiry. The better sense of the American people moves to repeal 
the National Gag-Law which he now administers, and every interest of publie 
and private morality demands thorough discussion of the issue which sectarian 
pride and intolerance now endeavor to postpone. 

This is my ‘‘offence;’’ | was the first to move repeal of the statute 


and hive worked for it persisteatly during the past seven years; 
pending its repeal I have sought an interpretation of the statute such 
as would not invade the constitutional rights of citizens or disgrace 
the very name of law. Since ] showed him exulting in the number of 
publishers he had ‘‘worried to death,’”’—murdered ; since the repeal 
of his statute would end his mischievous career, my accuse¥ naturally 
insists that I shall be ‘“‘removed’’ and Princeton ‘cleaned out.”’ 

The indictment which restrains me of my liberty is a mere opinion 
of the Dist. Attorney, the Grand Jury being ¢o me anonymous persons 
into whose faces I was not permitted to look; Mr. Sanger says Cupid's 
Yokes is “‘so grossly obscene, lewd and lascivious that it would be 
offensive to the court and improper to be spread upon the records 


16 FREE SPEECH. 


thereof;’’ he made the same statement relative to Dr. Clark’s ‘‘Mar- 
riage Guide,” (in the case U.S. vs. Edgar W. Jones, Nov. 1877) but 
of which Judge Lowell, your [Lonor’s predecessor, in a speech from 
this bench to which Mrs. Tleywood and I had the pleasure of listen- 
ing, said ‘‘I do not see anything at all indecent in the book. . . It does 
not come within the statute. .. It treats of certain subjects which I 
think ought to be taught in school.’? Mr. Jones reports that, when 
he submitted the book to him for examination, before putting it into his 
trade-list, Mr. Sanger himself, said ‘‘he could not see why it was not 
perfectly proper to send through the mails, and looked upon it the 
same as other medical works;” adding ‘“‘there is but one person in the 
United States who will make you any trouble, and that person is An- 
thony Comstock of New York.’”’ Yet he afterwards signed an indict- 
ment which held the book ‘‘too obscene to be spread upon the records 
of this court !’? He made the same false charge against Trall’s Sex- 
ual Physiology which was pronounced unobjectionable by this court 
in my case five years ago, and also in Bennett’s case. Mr. Sanger 
used the same language relative to Cupid’s Yokesin 1877-8; yet six 
thousand indignant people assembled in Faneuil Hall, Hon. Elizur 
Wright presiding, declared the book noé obscene ; protesting citizens, 
from Maine to California sent their many-thousand-voiced indorsement 
of the Faneuil Hall verdict up to Washington; President Hayes and 
Atto’y Gen. Devens said Faneuil Hall was right and Mr. Sanger 
wrong; I was unconditionally released, Gen. Devens giving as one of 
the reasons why he and President Hayes favored it that they did not 
think Cupid’s Yokes was an obscene book; this was his language :— 

‘*T am aware that there may be much difference of opinion upon the subject, 

and do not confound it with those obscene publications the effect and object of 
which is to excite the imagination and inflame the passions.’’—Letter to Hon, 
Elizur Wright, Jan. 13th, 1879. 
Yet in the light of these facts, four years after the highest law officer 
of the government had pronounced the book mailable, Mr. Sanger 
signs and sends up here the old false statement! I leave it to you, 
Gentlemen, and your Honor, to decide what the opinion of an Attor- 
ney is worth who persists in such a charge, in the light of facts and 
events refuting it. 

The 3d and 4th counts of Mr. Sanger’s indictment are a kind of 
double-barreled shot at preventing conception, a matter of domestic 
jurisprudence somewhat new to courts, but on which women have 
minds as to what uses their bodies may or may not be put to, by men, 
—the desires and opinions of obscenists to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. The advertisement of the ‘Comstock Syringe”? which appeared 
in only three issues of Tar Worp,—Sept., Oct. and Nov.,—had one 
sole, exclusive purpose viz.: the proclamation of an opinion, the asser- 
tion of Woman’s Natural Right to ownership of and control over her 
own body-self,—a right inseparable from Woman’s intelligent exist- 
ence; a right unquestionable, precious, inalienable, real— beyond 
words to express; and yet a right on which Mr, Sanger’s construction 
of the statute and my arraignment here constitute an invasive, revolt- 
ing, inhuman, murderous assault. Woman’s right to discretion in 
maternity; her imperatively serious duty to conceive, carry and de- 
liver worthy children,—this issue having been brought to the front by 
the advertisement in that form, it was withdrawn and the following 
appeared in Dec. Worp, instead :— 


FREE SPEECH. 17 


“‘The Vaginal Syringe for Cleansing Purposes. . . It is the Natural Right and 
may be the positive duty of women to prevent conception.’’ In explanation of 
this act the following editorial note of the change was made in the same issue :— 

‘To name a really good thing ‘Comstock’ has a sly, sinister, wily look, indi- 
cating vicious purpose; in deference to its N. Y. venders, who gave it that name, 
the Publishers of ‘ue Worp inserted an advertisement of ‘The Comstock Syringe’ 

which will hereafter appear as ‘The Vaginal Syringe ;’ for its intelligent, iumane 
and worthy mission should no longer be libelied by forced association with the, 
pious scamp who thinks Congress gives him legal right of way to and control 
over every American Woman’s Wom)b.”’ 

1 repeat, the object of this advertisement is to utter an opinion, assert 
a principle ; did reformers seek money they would not be given to advo- 
vocacy of ideas which keep them oscillating between prison and poor- 
house; which don’t allow them to say ‘‘When I was in Europe,’”’ but 
does enable them to say ‘‘When I was in Jail;”’ they would not pub- 
lish little poverty assuring newspapers in Princeton, Massachusetts, 
where Tne Arr is electric with intuitive, conscientious endeavor; they 
would rather go to New York where they say ‘‘one must lie and cheat 
like the devilin order to get an honest living;’? where Dea. Colgate, 
President of the Vice Society, gets rich making and selling vasciline 
for preventing conception ;* where other ‘‘pure’”’? Shylocks make and 
vend tons of syringes to prevent conception, yet are unmolested, well- 
beloved fellow members of Brooklyn Churches with Comstock, Colgate 
and Benedict! Though the persecuted syringe is “the only good 
thing Comstock’s name was ever wedded to”’ still | favor divorce in 
this case and have no interest in it beyond the idea, the invaded right 
it proclaims. The ultimate purpose of Comstockians is to suppress 
everything ‘‘designed or intended to prevent conception’’—anything 
which may be used by woman to frustrate the desigus of man on her 
person. Those I represent assert the natural equality of the sexes in 
social relations; obscenists insist on absolute male suremacy—to be 
imposed by ball and bayonet, lead and iron if need be.~ Do you 
blame women for resenting the barbarous outrage?’ Is there a man 
of sense living who believes the statute was meant for the revolting 
use all womanly women justly denounce? Like a tooth brush or 
towel the syringe is for cleanliness, health, not for vicious or crintinal 
purposes. These artificial means of preventing conception are not 
generally patronized by I'ree Lovers. Beyond what they invest in 
child-production men should turn their life-element, their semen into 
physical, mental, moral power. Since Comstockism makes male will, 
passion and power absolute to ampose conception, | stand with women 
tu resent it.{ The man who would legislate to choke a woman’s va- 

* Mr. Heywood offered in evidence a tract published and circulated iy Colgate 
and Co, in which vasciline 1s recommended as a means of preventing conception! 
He also produced medical Journals and a United States Postal Guide in woich 
Vaginal Syringes are offered at wholesale and retail by N. Y. business firms, 

“never molested by Comstock ! 

+ Mr. Heywood here quoted from a jury of sixteen women,—Mrs, E. D. Slen- 
ker, Juliet H. Severance, Lois Waishroker, Sarah Hlizabeth Holmes, Mis. H. 8. 
Lake, Rachel Campbell, Mrs. Sadie Rice, Mrs. 8. J. Lenont, Elizabeth M. F. 
Denton, Angela T. Heywood, Frances A. Stuart, Mary Kk. Tillotson, Ellen B. 
Harmon, Mrs. M. E. Egli, Dody E. Beauchamp and Mrs. A. P. Joyce; ladies of 
representative character, none of them special advocates of preventatives but all 
voice resolute indignation at vice-socrety effort t» supervise maternal function by 


act of Congress. 

t Invasive heism, arbitrary repressive ecclesiasticism which hitherto have subjected 
woman to man’s desires now find her insurgent, Woman’s Rights, declared by Mrs. 
Stanton, Lucretia Mott and others at Seneca Falls, N. Y,, 1848, now seconded by the 
Massachusetts Democracy led by Gen, Butler, are realized in woman’s growing im- 


18 FREE SPEECH. 


gina with semen, who would force a woman to retain his seed, bear 
children when her own reason and conscience oppose it, would way- 
lay her, seize her by the throat and rape her person. I do not pre- 
scribe vaginal syringes ; that is woman’s affair not mine ; but her right 
to limit the number of children she will bear is unquestionable as her 
right to walk, eat, breathe or be still. Of the seven clefts, apertures, 
openings in woman’s body the vagina is one ; who says it may not need 
«cleansing as well as the ear, or the nostril? Mr. Sanger says ‘‘un- 
lawfully and knowingly” I have violated law; I deny it most emphati- 
cally, in the third and fourth counts as in the first and second charges in 
his heavily-loaded, back-kicking government-gun. As to whether this 
syringe ever has been, or ever can be used for unlawful, criminal pur- 
poses that is for the government not for me to prove. The Dist. Att’y 
can call in Physicians, experts and have that matter decided right 
here. While experimentally, personally I know nothing of its uses 
many intelligent, reliable citizens highly recommend it to promote 
purity and health.* . 

It is woman’s right to prevent conception if she chooses to do so; you 
gentlemen will not traverse that right; as to whether this syringe will 
produce that result and that it is not useful or necessary for sanitary 
or medical purposes it is for the government to prove. Professional 
examination of the utensil will clearly establish its legitimate and 
necessarily innocentuse. ‘Thousands of physicians and druggists in 
the States declare its use invaluable, indispensable in the treatment of 
female diseases and for applying local remedies to preserve personal 
health and purity. In Washington, D. C., in close fellowship with 
Congress, the White House and the Post Office Department is pub- 
lished a newspaper called The Alpha; it is edited and published by 
conservative women representing the Moral Education societies in 
pulse to be mistress of her own Person; in the arrival of Natural Equity of the sexes 
in social relations, Before, ‘‘the Heywood case” meant the right of private judgment 
in morals; Cupid’s Yokes transcended vindictive repression on that line. Now, not 
books merely, but a syringe is in the fight; the will of man to tmpose vs. the Right of 
Woman to prevent conception is the issue, The giddy, evasive ways, in which the 
sexes have, hitherto, met must turn to serious facing of facts, Docs not Nature give 
to woman and install her in the right of way to and from her own womb? Shal! Heism 
continue to be imperatively absolute in coition? Should not Sheism have her say also? 
Shall we submit to the loathsome impertinence which makes Anthony Comstock in- 
spector and supervisor of American women’s wombs? This womb-syringe question is 
to the North what the negro question was to the South; as Mr, Heywood stood beside 
the slave demanding his liberation, so now he voices the emancipation of woman from 
sensual thraldom. Congressmen vote our persons sluice-ways for irresponsible indul- 
gence, empower Comstock to search bureaus and closets,— lest by means of u syringe, 
or ctherwise, we resent the outrage. It is not we that lift the Syringe Question to 
public view, but the U. 8S. Government, by ill-luck of allowing itselt to become basely 
subservient to ecclesiastic, church Intrusion. By nature and all legislation hitherto, 
woman’s womb is her own private property; Republican Congresses and Courts, (un- 
knowingly let us try to think), now empower one man not merely to search houses as 
they do in Russia, but to enter bed-chambers to look for semen in woman's person! As 
the fugitive slave-bill made all humane Northrons friendly to its fleeing victims so the 
revolting, devilish purpose of ‘‘obscenists” calls Intelligence to Woman’s s‘de assert- 
ing her Natural Right to ownership and control of her person. Because Free Lovers, 
by grace of self-knowledge and control, have no special use for art ficial means of pre- 
venting conception does Fate bid them now defend a syringe, forbidden to women by 
statute as a means of saying ‘‘No” to unwelcome maleadvances.— Angela T. Heywood. 

* Mr. Heywood read testimonials from several representative Physicians and 
women indorsing the syringe ; a mother purchased one and sent it to her daugter 
in Mich. as a Christmas present. A Boston lady says ‘‘It Comstock’s mother Lad 
had a syringe and used it judiciously the world would have been saved much 
trouble !”’ rs. Colman, recalled to the witness stand identified the Comstock 
Syringe which went in evidence to jusify itself. 


--s- 


FREE SPEECH. 19 


that and other leading cities of the union ; in its Dec. issue a venerable 
matron wrote, ‘‘Maria, 1 don’t know any other way than using a vel- 
vet sponge to protect yourself from impregnation.’’ I am told, by re- 
liable informants, that in France and America sponge with a string 
attached is in prevailing use to prevent conception; druggists, every- 
where, vend sponges; are they prosecuted therefor, even though each 
piece of sponge sold has a string attached? Women say that chilling 
water, properly applied, will prevent conception; is it, therefore, 
“ciiminal intent or design’? to have water near by? Shaker societies 
widely, defiantly organize prevention of conception in non-association 
of the sexes ;* Ann Lee their founder, the Manchester factory girl and 
potent Spirit Medium originated this ‘‘treason;’’ are the Shakers, 
Elder Evans and Mother Ann therefore criminal in ‘‘design and in- 
tent?”’ 

Many years the Co-operative Publishing Co. have kept in stock and 
constantly sold two books, one entitled “Why Not?” the other ‘Is It 
1?’ written by Dr. H. R. Storer, Prof. in Harvard College, published 
by Lee and Shepard of Boston; these books are an earnest, scholarly 
and convincing exposure of the evils and prevalence of abortion. 
Thirteen years ago | wrote this :— 

Child. murder is comparatively rare in poor countries like Ireland and among labor- 
ing people of all nations; while in Paris und New York, by the ‘‘upper” classes, it is 
increasingly practiced, mothers often provoking abortion to preserve their physical 
beauty, and escape trom the ‘‘home sphere” into the delirieus whirl of fashionable 
life. Dr, ttorer shows tLat the practice of abortion, by the American women of Mass- 
achusetts and New York, is so limiting the increase of population that it is mairtained 
chiefly by foreign immigration. The number and success of abortionists is notorious; 
hardly anewspuper that does not contain their open and printed advertisements, or a 
drug store whose shelves are not crowded with nostrums publicly and unblushingly 
displayed. The feminine instinct of these “womanly” women—not strong-minded, 
and never seen in suffrage conventions—is so perverted that they seem unconscious 
of the crime to themselves and society they are guilty of; and in selfish egotism rival 
cven those of the most luxurious cities of Europe and Asia, who, subsisting on fugitive 
attschments, find in marriage a convenient screen behind which to shelter their indis- 
erction’. Our critics must cease this wise nonsense which says to woman ‘‘TRe Good,” 
and makes man the sample piece of what she is to copy from. It is high time that the 
one most deeply interested in marriage and reproducticn should be consulted as a re- 
sponsible partner; that the maker of men should have free choice of materials, meth- 
ods and ccnditions wherewith to perfect her wondrous work.-Uncivil Liberty pp 21-2. 
No one can read Dr. Storer’s startling, painful pages without amaze- 
ment at the extent to which infanticide, child-murder prevails in what 
is called ‘“‘good society.’’? The question every lover of humankind 
asks is ‘‘Why is abortion so general, what is the cause of it and what 
is the remedy?”’? An elderly physician, whose name commands re- 


spect wherever he is known, recently wrote me the following :-— 
Every city, town, village has its professional abortionist patronized by young giris, 
married and unmarried women, multitudes of whom die, the cause of their death be- 
ing rarely known cutside the circle of near relatives. Regular physicians do this bu- 
siness in cases where they feel certain that the death of the parents would foliow the 
death or exposure of a daughter. A doctor in one of the cape towns told a medical 
friend of mine that his minister, in the exciteinent of revival, got 2 young lady of his 
church with child and propcsed to him to procure an abortion He refused to do it; 


* There are many modes of preventing conception, but the most effectual that 
we have ever heard of is for the sexes not to come together. If, then, prevention 
is wicked and unlawlul, this is the most wicked of all; if Comstock is right every 

erson or family guilty of discretion should be sent to prison during life. This 
Saratiek law, making it a state prison crime to sell or use anything for the pre- 
vention of conception, is an exccedingly great outrage, and shows the vast danger 
of having the enactment of our laws depend in any way upon a meddlesome, un- 

rincipled. ecclesiastical society. This law should no longer be on the statute 
Tooke, fathers and mothers should exercise the right of determining the size of 
their families.—D. M. Bennett. 


20 FREE SPEECH. 


but the parents were his patients; most estimable people who would be killed by the 
death or exposure of their daughter and he did it but but took no pay for it. A mar- 
ried lady of my acquaintance (a member of Park St. Church, Boston, when Mr. Stone 
was pastor,) the mother of four children was operated upon by an abortionist, (she 
said she could have been tracked by the blood trom his office to her home) and_sur- 
vived. Another married lady operated on herself; was very ill tor several months, 
but went out in a siorm before recovery, and died. A young lady member of an Or- 
thodox Church, said to have been seduced by her Sabbath School Superintendent was 
operated upon by an abortionist and died, her pastor, ignorant of the cause of her 
death gave a glowing account of her religious experience. A few years ago I was in 
the habit of visiting a medical friend in a town of some 25.000 people, In the same 
bu.lding with him was an abortionist; I never passed his office, in warm weather when 
his dc or was open, without seeing several closcly veiled ladies waiting their turn. My 
friend seid his ncighbor was always:busy with ihese cases, though he had been twice 
tricd for h’s life. Ihave stood by the bed-side of a dying man whose daughter was 
being Celivered of an illegitimate child while he was dying; his wite dying atew days 
aiterwarcs jrcm the sime cause, These things happen everywhere, especially and 
more frequently in what is called ‘good society ;” these domestic tragedies would be 
far more frequint if prceventatives of conce; tion could be suppressed; their ase tends 
to destrcy the tiace of the al ortionist with all the suffering and death which follow it; 
by their use the prudcnt ond the wealthy kecp their families small; their abindon- 
ment wo ld lcave the vict.ms of misplaced confidence, the inexpericnced, the loving, 
the tistirg no Lo,e of relief execpt in suicide, or the needle of the abortionist. 
Women uillharvechildrcn. IVhejate Dr. Waltcr Channirg, Prof. of midwifery in 
Harvard College, after describing a malformed pelvis, where the mother could only 
be delivered with instruments of a dead child, after great lasceratiyon of the parts and 
terrible suffering, said: ‘You will say, gentlemer, that, after such an operation as I 
have deseribed, a woman would never have a second child. Gentlemen, this woman 
had several children all delivered by just such an operation as I have described. 1 do 
not understand how it ean be, but no matter what the risk or the suffering, women will 
have children.” I have been severaktimes solicited to produce abortion upon married 
women jn good circumstances with families but have always refused. On the shady 
side of three score and ten I have had three near relatives, medical’ men, and been 
intimate with several others; and I know that few men, outside of the medical pro- 
fession, have any conception of the suffering that would follow in the present state of 
society could the syringe be suppressed. 
My accuser comes over from New York to impose ‘purity’? on us 
here by violence. Have New Yorkers any purity to spare? Confirm- 
ing the startling facts given in the letter I have just read to you let us 
see to what extent wealthy N. Y. churches practice abortion or use 
preventatives of conception. In the N. A. Review, Feb. 1883, page 
149, Bishop Coxe, a prominent Episcopalian divine says:— 
‘T have heretofore warned my flock against the blood guiltiness of infanticide. . . 
The world itself is beginning to be terrified by the practical results of the sacrifices to 
Moloch which defile our land. There are scientific and statistical documents before 
the people which fully sustain my remonstrances.” On the same page Mr. J. W. 
Leveridge for forty years prominent in Sunday School work and now Secretary of the ! 
Sunday School Association of New York County says: ‘‘They (the churches) never ' 
report so many scholars for the church and so many for chapels:and inissions, but so 
many inthe lamp. The reason for this is, in plain English, that they are ashamed of * 
themselves, There are lots of these big churches on Broadway and Fifth*Avenue, 
with from eight to fifteen hundred members who cannot show one hundred Sunday , 
Schoel Schokas. Why is this? WellI guess rich people have about quit having chil- 
deen. And even middle eluss Christians don’t seem to do much better. When I was 
a ycunger nen than Iam now, our Sunday-schools were largely made up of the chil- 
dren of church members, Now the ehildren of Christian parents are awlully few and 
fur between.’ — This was satd to a rcporter of the NY. Times and printed by Bishop , 
B. J. Me Quaid in his article on ‘The Decay of Proiestantism,” 
You sce, gentlemen, that these wealthy N. Y.. church members, who . 
pay Comstock ¢4,000 a year to export. ‘‘virtue?’ destroy, their..own 
children by ebortion, infanticide, or else they prevent conception! - 
‘They all do it?’ and had bettercallhometheirhound. I do-not think 
the world ere all saints or the church are all sinners; I do not stand 
here to justify abortion, infancitide, or even preventing conception by 
hurtiul, vicious or criminal methods; but ] insist on the natural, con- 
stitutional right, the imperatively religious duty of women to intelli- 
gently consider all the grave issues involved in Love and Parentage, 


FREE SPEECH. 21 


and to do what seems to them wisely best, at their own risk and cost. 
Had not this ineffably sacred right of woman been invasively, impu- 
dently, murderously denied, by Comstock and his backers, the pub- 
lishers of Tas Worp never would have thought of advertising the syr- 
inge.* Preventing conception is something far different from abor- 
tion; it tends to destroy the trade of abortionists; it does not take life 
but removes waste matter. You, Gentlemen, and your Honor, well 
know what a wealth of reproductive power men have; what numbers, 
the numberless children a strong, healthy, robust, man may beget. 
What is done with all this exhuberant, potential overflowing life-cle- 
ment men carry? Does every seed of corn planted come up? Do 
men ask, expect, much less insist that women be impregnated every 
time they entertain them sexually? Ofcourse they donot. But what 
becomes of the waste matter? Women remove it. After men give it 
to them it is women’s property, to retain or cast away as they, the 
women think best. Show me the man living who is brute, fool or 
knave chough to insist that his wife shall have a child when she don’t 
want one! N. Y. church members, Comstock’s fellow-male Christians 
do not, surely! They get what they want but take care that the seed 
does not germinate ; that the children do not appear in Sunday school 
or elsewhere. Why then imprison me again for insisting that these 
very grave matters be intelligently, seriously considered ¢ 

Through the door opened by the syringe comes into this case the 
momentous question of population. Shall excessive increase be 
checked only by the desolating ravages of war, pestilence, poverty and 
starvation or shall Science come in to avert disaster by beneficent pre- 
vision? ‘This is the pregnant issue, the imperatively serious question 
with which the 3d and 4th counts of this indictment confront you 


Gentlemen, and your Honor. Listen to these witnesses :— 

There is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally increases at so 
high a rate that, if not destroyed, the earth would soon be covered with the progeny 
of a single pair, Even the slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty five years, and, 
at this rate, ina few thousand years, there would literally not be standing room for 
his progeny.—Charles Darwin. 

The power of increase of the buman species may be regarded as infinite; at the low. 
est estimate ench generiution may be double the number of the generation which pres 
ceeded it. There is no species of vegetable or animal, which, if the earth were entirely 
abandoned to it, and the things on which it feeds, would not in a small number of 
yeurs overspread every region of the globe of which tlhe climate was compatible with 
lis existence.—John Stuart Mill. 

Ireland should serve to warn us of the terrible misfortunes brought upon a country 
by an undue increase of population. At the beginning of the 18th century the popula- 
tion there was about two millions; the two millions had grown into eight millions in 
1847. Thecountry was so densely populated that multitudes of people could only ob- 
tain the birest subsistence; yet the people went on marrying with utter improvidence, 
the priests and all the influences of religion encouraging early marriages. When the 
potato, the staple food of the people was diseased it was found that there were more 
peopie it the country than could be fed.— Prof. Fawcett. 


Prof. Fawcett when he wzote this evidently had not considered the 
effect of land monopoly on population and poverty ; he needs to go to | 
school to Davitt and Parnell on that subject. But he is right relative 
to the necessity of intelligent limitation of increase which we are con- 
sidering. The uncounted, overflowing millions of China perishing in 
tnopportunity, destitution and squalor furnish astill more appalling ex- 

* Mrs. Warner and Mrs. Colman testified in defense of Mr. H. that it is the 
deeply serious conviction of multitudes of intelligent and conscientious women 
that the use of preventatives is infinitely preferable to abortion. But Free Lovers 
say ‘OF two evils choose neither;’’? waste, suffering, disaster will be unknown 
when [nteiligent Mutualism prevails in Sexuality. 


22 ‘FREE SPEECH. 


ample of the imperative necessity of conscientious discretion in the re 
production of the human species. The condition of China is a kin to 
that of England in 1258 when 15,009 people in London alone starved 
to death; in France, 13£8, one-third of the whole population perished 
from the same cause; in England, 1506-7, the sweating sickness slew 
half the inhabitants of the large towns and depopulated Oxford; in 
London, 1603-4, the plague killed 30,578 people; 1631-5 it destroyed 
68,596; in Naples, 1556, 400,000 died; in Egypt, 1792, 800,000. 
Wars, epidemics, fimines, are inhuman, merciless checks which irra- 
tional necessity puts on uninteiligent increase of population. Free 
Lovers move amendment of these horrible conditions. In Cupid’s 
Yokes page twenty, I wrote this :— 

Since the increase of population outruns increase in means of subsistence, Malthus 
urged that, unless pcople refuse to marry, or deter it till middle lite there w.ll be too 
many consumers for the food grown; and that, if they do not heed this admonition, 
Nature sternly vepresses excessive increase of population, ‘hy the ghastly ageacies of 
war, pestilence, and famine.” Lycurgus favored destroying imperfect and sickly chil- 
dren; Plato, in his imaginative Republic, advises a similar weeling- ut process; and, 
thinking sexual desire ‘‘a most enervating and filthy cheat,’ Shakerisin endeavors to 
exterminate it—three popular devices to govera propagation and Population; 1. The 
Shaker-Malthus methol, which forbids sexual intercourse; 2. The abortion-child-mur- 
der method, which destroys life before or aftcr birth; 3. The French Owen method of 
barriers, withdrawal, etc., to arrest the process in its course;—but, since they are 
either unnatural, injarioas, or offensive, all these devices are rejecte'! by Free Lovers. 
Extending the domain of reason and self-control over the whole humin system, and 
believing that ali things work together for the good of those that love good, they not 
only believe, but k2ow, that, under self-discipline, ‘every organ or faculty in the body 
works invariably, in all cases, and at ail times, for the good of the whole ” 

I know, Gentlemen, the question has already risen in your minds: If 
government does not forbid preventatives will not indulgence, excess, 
debauchery result? They may unless, in the words of Cupid’s Yokes, 
“the reproductive instinct be inspired by intelligence and placed under 
the dominion of the will.” But repression scttles nothing, cures 
nothing; it widens, deepens infection, fatalizes the disease. Do Com- 
stock statutes, anti-polygamy bills, prohibitory-liquor laws check lib- 
ertinism, prostitution in Boston, New York or Washington? Does 
imprisoning Free Lovers remove out-crying social evils they unmask ? 
Do you head off earthquakes by locking up geologists who warn you 
of their coming? Would snow and rain storms not burst on us if we 
sent weather-prophets to Dedham Jail? Does deriding Gov. Butler 
lessen the number of infants skulls which pave the hells of Tewksbury 
almshouse ? We must appeal the social-evil case to Reason, Conscience; 
to the moral order, the fruitful, felictous harmony of enlightened Being. 
We must lift people out of the slough of sensualism, out of the lower 
stories of indulgence into Heart, Brain,—into thoughtful endeavor to 
know their rights and duties, and dare maintain them. Hence we in- 
sist on Free Speech, Free Press and Free Mails for the proclamation 
of opinions relative to a syringe as well as for trac!s, books, newspapers 
on all other subjects of human interest. 1 believe in peace principles; 
the costliest struggle of my life was in 1861 when I dissented from my 
then hated and despised, but now everywhere honored friends, Gar- 
rison and Phillips, refusing to favor war even to secure emancipation; 
practically a Non-resistant I would not use. arms to save my own life 
from assault ; yet, if a law was enacted forbidding citizens to keep and 
bear arms I should certainly defend their right to buy and use rifles, 
Women have no special constitutional provision relative to their per- 
sons such as men have enabling them to keep and bear arms; but in 
the manhood of citizens, in your hearts, Gentlemen, rises the irresisti- 


FREE SPEECH. 23 


ble impulse to stand by woman asserting her right to .discretion in 
maternity. Itis the social side of woman suffrage; in indorsing 
woman’s rights the Mass’tts Democracy indorse the syringe; Com- 
stock’s assault on woman makes an ordinary household utensil an em- 
blem of liberation. As Constantine put the Cross, that is the penis on 
his banner saying ‘‘By this sign, Conquer,’’ so by the necessary ac- 
companiment of every lady’s toilet, a syringe, Woman may achieve 
Liberty. 

Obscenity, as a question of fact, brings this case into the domain of 
morals, giving it religio-political significance; the famous English 
Bishop Butler says, ‘‘Moral duties rise out of the Nature of the case 
itself, prior to external commands;”’ a person, an individual is the 
primary and ultimate fact in this wilderness of pronoun Is, called 
society. Rev. Timothy Fuller, Margaret Fuller’s grandfather and the 
first clergyman of Princeton, President Garfield’s great-grandfather 
who was a native of my neighbor town of Westminster, and Elbridge 
Gerry of Newburyport, in the Mass’tts Convention to ratify the Fed- 
eral Constitution, voted to reject it because of its pro-slavery clauses ; 
because it did not recognize the source of morals, persons, irrespective 
of race or color,—Mr. Garfield inducing his fellow-townsmen of West- 
minster to vote unanimously this clear-headed reason for their action : 

“*Tt is our opinion that no constitution whatever ought to be established till pre- 
viously thereto a till of rights be set forth and the constitution be framed there- 
from, so that the lowest capacity may he able to determine his natural rights and 
judgeof the equitableness of the constitution thereby.”’ 

Roger Williams, ‘‘a young minister, godly and zealous, with his wife 
Mary”’’ landed in Boston Feb. 5, 1631; prophet, seer, martyr, and the 
first democrat he put the idea of personal sanctity I stand for into the 
town of Providence, which he founded, and into the first Baptist 
Church in America which he organized there, but from which he soon 
withdrew because of its disobedience to the heavenly vision which 
guided his life. He said ‘‘it was not lawful to require one to swear or 
pray; for both are forms of worship; that the power of the civil magis- 
trate extends only to the bodies, goods and outward state of men, and 
not to their souls and consciences;’’ that ‘‘magistrates should behave 
like the captain of a ship who let his passengers have any kind of religi- 
ous meeting they please on board, so long as they keep the peace and 
do not quarrel.’’ These first principles of religio-civil liberty tersely 
stated and bravely incarnated by great-grandfather Garfield, Minister 
Fuller, lawyer Gerry and tie divine Williams determine social freedom 
and dissipate the obscenity delusion in advance. My venerable bonds- 
man, Elizur Wright, well says ‘‘If there is such a thing as obscenity it 
consists in lack of respect for the sexual nature.” It originates in 
man’s alleged ownership of and trade in woman’s person ; it resides in 
rude, cheap, vulgar, false, ungentlemanly ideas of woman’s generative 
maternal nature. There is nothing obscene but unclean thought,— 
mental sickness. Indecency, vulgarity, diseased sexual organs, syp- 
hilis, gonorrheea call loudly for treatment, cure,—not for decoy, false- 
hood, secrecy, suppression. Repress, drive in physical disease and 
the patient dies; call it out, expel it and the person lives. In nature 
health is contagious, catching; while disease is cast out, perishes when 
native forces act. This obscenity scare, of which Comstock is high- 
priest and lawgiver, prevailed awhile, was supposed to have backbone 
because public opinion did not say no to it. Gentlemen, in this mat- 


° 


24 FREE SPEECH. 


ter world what is better than the human body? St, Paul said ‘‘Ye are 
the temple of God... The temple-of God is holy which temple ye 
are.’’—/, Cor. 3, 16-17. Peter said ‘‘Whit God hath cleansed that 
call not thou common, . + God hath showed me that I should not call 
any man common or unclean.’’—Ae/s 10, 15-28. The buman body is 
naturally whole, good in all its parts; if a man is imLevile, impotent, 
unable to beget a child,—what sensible woman wants to be yoked by 
Cup:d, by magistrate «cr God with him,—with a man having no pas- 
sion, no physical heat, no generative power? It was aclean, whole, 
handsome, sexually potent, mental spiritual, yet plysically well-en- 
dowed gentleman Whitman had in mind when he wrote the “indicted” 
poems. A prominent business man of Boston, whois also a scholar, 
writer, spcaker and a life-long reformer, reading twice over the two 
poems, ““To A Common Prostitute’? and A Woman Waits for Me,” | 
printed on this now famous slip “The Word Extra’? looked up to his 
wife and exclaimed ‘“‘What is the matter with that, that’s the way 
tis!” The old king said if he had been present at the begetting of 
things he could have given uscful suggestions to God, the creator! 
Even if Comstock could, by act of Congress, decoy letters, or impri- 
sonment of “handsomer men’ than himself have babes born with 
clothes on would that improve Nature? God said of Adam and Eve, 
before vice-societies infected them with false-modesty and secret-dis- 
ease ‘‘They were both naked-and were not ashamed.’’—Gen. 2, 25; 
‘‘Moses saw people were naked, for Aaron (the high-priest, tiie Rev. 
Joseph Cook, the Rev. Dr. Crosby of the day) had made them naked ”’ 
—KExodus 32,25. ‘‘Naked came lout of my mother’s womb, ’,—Job 
1,21. ‘Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to 
the Lord.’’—Luke 2, 23. ‘All things are naked and open unto the 
eyes of him with whom we have to do.’’—Heb, 3, 13. Gentlemen, if 
there is anything better on earth than the body of man it is the body 
of woman, your mother, sister, daughter, wife or lady-love—, 

“A being breathing thougl thul breath, 

A traveller between lite and death; 

The reason firm, the temperate will, 

Endurance, foresight, strength and skill; 


A perfect woman nobly planned, 
To warn, to comlort and command,”— 


what object on earth or in Air surer to wake all the potent beneficence 
of man’s being than woman’s person! Accursed is the man with 
idiotic indiscretion who is ashamed of his passion for woman! What 
emasculated fool is this who, as the flame of manly heat goes up 
through his body house comes down in charred ruins on penitent 
knees to apologize for and be ashamed of his passional vigor, his gen- 
erative rectitude! A bank director standing high and well also in 
church, politics and business said to me that reading these two poems 
in ‘The Word Extra’’ gave him generative erection! Supposing they 
did, are the poems bad on that account? Did not Whitman, when he 
wrote these poems, know good, fruitful nature in this nan and paint 
him worthily ? Ifreading about creative power in trade and com- 
merce made his bank-stock rise in value would my man be ashamed 
of it as ‘“‘obscene ?”?’ Gentlemen, I ain amazed at the shame-facedness 
with which some men meet their own nature; at their witless weak- 
ness, if not perverse puerility in the presence of the divine potencics 
of these our body forms! I marvel at the idiotic pretense of ‘‘obscen- 
ity’’ which attempts to forbid, by statute, citizens becoming wisely 


FREE SPEECH. 25 


informed of, and well-trained in the creative, human energies which 
people Earth, and quicken civilizing, redeeming tendencies! So felt 
Walt Whitman when he wrote in Leaves of Grass, — 

I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, 

I know that the spirit of God is the b:other of my ow n, ve 

For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears; 

For me children and begetters of children... 

I am the poet of tie woman the same as of the man, 

Aud [ say it is as great to be a womin as to be a man, 

And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men... 

I find letters from God dropped in the sireet and every one is signed by God’s name. . 
Ages, precedents, poems have long been accumulating, undirected materials; 

America brings builders, and brings its own styles. .. 

Their Presi lents shall not be their common referevs so much as their poets shall. . . 
This is not only one inan,—he is ihe father of those who shall be fathers in their turn; 
In him the start of populous states and rich republics, 

Of him countless immortal Jives with countless embodiments and enjoyments. . . 
Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean, 

Not aninch, nor a particle of an inch, is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the 
Iluman bodies are words, myrials of words; Lyset 
In the best poems reappears the body, man 's or Woman ’s, well-shaped, natural, gay. 
Every part able, active, veceptive, without shame or nec d of sh: ame, 


But, Gentlemen, ‘this cry of ‘‘obscenity”’ ill-becomes the church, 
professors of Christianity whose every religious symbol originated in 
the sexual organs of men and women. The historic fact, well-known 
to scholars and scientists, a fact in proof of which I could pile this 

table high with books brought right down here from the Athenaeum 
Library on Beacon St.; a fact recorded in Appleton’s American En- 
cyclopzedia, Vol. v. p. 512, that the Christian Cross was suggested hy 
the male generative organ, ‘‘its most ancient use being jn robab! ya 
phallic emblem the type of the active principle of life.’”’ Inman’s ‘‘An- 
cient Faiths,’ Higgin’s ‘‘Anacalypsis’”’ and his ‘‘Celtic Druids’’”’ Payne 
Knight’s ‘Worship of Priapus,’”? Layard’s ‘“‘Nineveli’’ and many other 
works disclose in the twilight-dawn of human society that the cross, 
as an ecclesiastic symbol and a sign of devotion, in structure and use 
denotes generation and regeneration. Since ‘‘to the power of repro- 
duction is allied the acme of physical bliss’ and moral sublimity the 
generative-sexual function naturally tinged aud swayed religious inspi- 
ration in India, Egypt, among the Buddhists, Babylonians, Phoenici- 
ans, Assyrians, the Hebrews, the Astecs and other ancient tribes. 
The Chaldees ‘‘believed in a Celestial Virgin who had purity of bo: dy, 
loveliness of form and tenderness of person; and to whom the erring 
sinner could SDpen with more chance of success than to a stern father. 

Portrayed with a child in her arms, her full womb teeming with bless- 
ings,’’ everything that could remind votaries of attractive feminine 
power was utilized in her worship. The Phatlus and Linga or Lingham 
imaged the male organ, the penis; the Yoni or Unit the female. orgaa, 
the womb. Dr, Inman says that these organs were portrayed on the 
walls of ancient temples.—Zzekiel 23, 14. The genitals of male cap- 
tives, like scalps by American Indians, were taken and sold or sacri- 
ficed as trophies. King Saul offered to sell his daughter in marriage 
for 100 Philistine foreskins ; David accepted the offer but doubled the 
number, slew 200 men, brought their genitals and ‘‘gave them in full 
tale to the king that he might be his son-in-law; and Saul gave him 
Michal his daughter to wife.-—Sam. 18, 25-27. See also 2 Aings 20, 

8; Isa. 39, 7. 


Another primitive custom in the patriarchal age was that the one who took the oath 
put his hand under thigh of the adjurer (Gen. 24, 2 and 47, 29). This practice evi 
dently arose from the fact that the genital member, which is meant by the euphemic 


26 FREE SPEECH. 


expression, thigh, was regared as the most sacred part of the body, heing the symbol 
of union in the tenderest relations of matrimonial life, the seat whence all issue pro- 
ceeds, and the perpetuity so much coveted by the ancients. Compare Gen. 46, 26; 
Exod. 1, 5; Judg. 8,30. Hence the creative organ became the symbol of the Creator 
and object of worship among all nations of antiquity. It was for this reason that God 
claimed it as a sign of the covenant between himself and his chosen people in the rite 
of circumcision. Nothing therefore could render the oath more solemn in those days 
than touching the symbol of creation, the sign of the covenant and the source of that 
issue who may at any future period avenge the breaking a compact nade by their pro- 
genitor.—Dr. Ginsingburg in Kitto’s Cyclopoedia. 

Abraham, the father of the faithful, himself a Chaldee reverenced the 
phallus or penis as an emblem of the Creator. My brave young friend 
John A. Lant, of New York, was Comstocked 18 months in Albany 
Penitentiary for printing in his paper, The Toledo Sun, a letter from 
Geo. Francis Train in which he said Brooklyn Christians, Comstock 
liimself and his reverend pastor worship the penis as Jehovah. It is 
a fact in history which I have just verified to you from unquestionably 
authentic records. The idea of the Trinity originated in the same 
way, the male privy member and the adjacent right and left testes 
making the Triad or triune Creator, the penis. Benjamin signifies 
“son of my right side,’’ that is sprung from seed in the right testicle. 
In Psa, 127, 3 David says ‘‘Children are an heritage of the Lord, and 
the fruit of the womb is his reward ;’’ that is the serving mother brings 
children to her Lord, their sire. The figleaf, having three lobes to it, 
became a symbol of the triad or penis :— 

The female organs of generation were revered as symbols of the generative powers 
of Nature or of matter, as those of the male were of the generative powers of God.— 
Worship of Priapus p. 28. 

Mary is a compound word composed of male and female principles, 
meaning a union of father and mother forces; the Celestial Mother, 
“‘God is love’’ was a tenet of faith 2,000 years before the accepted Vir- 
gin Mary now adored was born. Palm Sunday, the Communion Sac- 
rament, Trinity Sunday, the Garden of Kden, Fish and Good Friday,— 
these and many other religio-incidents symbolize sexuality. The cross, 
on which Jesus was executed, was used by the Romans to kill what 
they deemed their worst criminals because, as they said to a convict, 
‘‘You are too wicked to live and shall be put out of life by a means 
emblematical of what brought you into life;’”’ hence they crucified him 
on across, a penis. As Ihave shown you, Abraham required the ad- 
jurer, making oath to touch his thigh, his penis; hence the phrase ‘‘So 
help me God’’ originally meant ‘‘so help me the creative forces of life, 
the penis.’’? The idea of God now meaning a cluster of attributes, a 
flock of truths, Essential Intelligence, Positive Law, the It of things, 


originated in the male generative organ, the Jehovah penis. 

In Hindu myths the tortoise was the form taken by Vishnu in his second Incarna- 
tion; it was held sacred to Venus, worshipped because it ‘‘represents, in extended 
head and neck the acting linga—virile member, a sustainer of creation, a symbol of 
generation, a renewer of life, a supporter of the world” (and this is probably why Ori- 


entals paint the earth resting on a tortoise) ‘‘a type of omnipotence pointing to immor- 
tal felicity.” 


The expression ‘‘Mother Earth’’ has a sexual significance,—clefts, 
chasms, natural fruitfulness being typical of the maternal offices of 
woman; Druidical structures in the British Islands and India, Roman 
temples and passages in the Bible prove this an historic fact. I am 
here on trial by the United States government for alleged ‘‘obscenity;”’ 
behind government is the physical force the martial prowess which 
created it; behind the State House is Bunker Hill; behind Washing- 
ton are Valley Forge and Yorktown. On birth-spots of national life 


FREE SPEECH. 27 


or individual heroism rise monuments to signalize, commemorate per- 
sonal and collective achievement, expressive of our patriotic and reli- 
gious gratitude therefor. It is a well-known historic fact, Gentlemen, 
that the idea and structure of monuments originated in male-genera- 
tive power; the impressive, speaking shaft on Bunker Hill, forever 
vocal with Webster’s divine, immortal orations, gives lessons of valor 
and erectitude which obscenists, who dog my steps, may well study. 
And when we consider the fact that, after men failed or faltered in its 
erection, the women came forward and raised money to complete that 
maguificent structure, its history, its national and associative meaning 
becomes profoundly suggestive.* Relative to art and literature :— 
In the arena of Mechanics, Socket and Pivot are the law, the fact of action; 
the socket is suft, receptive iron, the pivot hard, projective; through realms of 
metals _ this analysis takes us into vegetable kingdoms where we find stamen 
and pistil, pollen and ovule with all their prolific uses and destinies. Why not 
make voyages of discovery into our body-selves, study attractive, fruitful jessons 
in Moral, Sexual Physiology? Why blush or be shamefaced in Stirpiculture 
more than in Agriculture, Horticulture, Floriculture or amid iron-ciad, steel 
bright, golden-pure wonders of Mechanics? Are not the Penis and Womb as 
native, handsome and worthy in ase as pivot and socket, pistil and stamen, pollen 
and ovule? What rioting debauchery, what rotting disease, what stroke of moral 
death or stark idiocy is upon men that they are less intelligent, respectful and 
orderly with their own body-selves than with the mental, wooden or vegetable 
manifestations of form and power? Not the voting question merely but the Sex 
Questivn, calls for discovery and Conversation ; in dark, hidden ways men legis- 
late on the use and destiny of women’s bodies,—when we may or may nut con- 
ceive; whether we shail have syringes to take an injection, enema, or for other 
cleansing purposes, and Citizens are imprisoned for daring to ask the reason why! 
—Angela I’, Heywood in Leaflet Literature, 
_ That same plainness of speech which is called such bad taste in Mr. Heywood 
is to be found in all the great masters of literary expression, in the Greek classics, 
in Chaucer, Shakspere, Milton, Dryden, Shelley, Goethe, Victor Hugo, as well 
as yur own Whitman, and even in Emerson, and likewise in the fountain-head of 
Christianity itself, the Jewish scriptures. So universal is it that one might pro- 
nounce it the voice of Nature herselt trying to vindicate the purity of every act of 
hers. I can match the most objectionable words of Mr. Heywood with something 
far more objectionable in the great writers of the world. Do you say that they 
were simply expressing the spirit of their age, and that if they wrote now they 
would write differently? That is not proven. Shelley, Goethe, Hugo are the 
most modern writers, and they have used the same expression. Chaucer, Shaks- 
pere, Dryden, Swift, Fielding, Sterne were not the creatures of their day—they 
were its masters. They were creative forces, and acted only in obedience to their 
own supreme genius. And when we pass from literature to art—to painting and 
sculpture—we shall find this method of expression far more prevalent and glar- 
ing. The cld painters, and the modern painters, too, like Turner, reveled in this 
nakedness of the truth. They believed in it as requisit to all high art. Kvery- 
where in the old country where art has won its greatest triumphs, do we find 
this open expression of every featureof Nature. Nothing is concealed. There is 
no appearance of shame. The human body has not been denied its rights upon 
the canvass or in the breathing marble.—S. P, Putnamin N. Y. Truth Seeker. 
Thus you see, Gentlemen, that in art literature, science, mechanics 
architecture, politics and religion there is constant reference, respeat- 
ful, appreciative deference to the human body and the sexual nature; 
are sculptors, painters, writers, statesmen and religionists therefore 
‘‘obscene’’ either in fact or intent? When Christians put the cross 
on their steeples, adorn their churches with it, and wear images of it 
on their bosoms, whether they know the historic origin of it or not, 
are they impure in fact or motive? I ask you, Gentlemen, to be as in- 


* Webster, publicly addressing the wealth and fashion of Boston once alluded 
very directly to the sex-significance of Bunker Hill Monument; those interested 
can see the passage in June Worn, Y. L. 12, 


28 FREE SPEECH. 


telligent and impartial in your judgment of passages in social-reform 
literature as you are in your opinions of other books and works of art. 
My venerable and devoted friend, Parker Pillsbury, in ‘‘Cupid’s Yokes 
and The ILoly Scriptures Contrasted’’ presents many passages from 
the Bible which ministers would not read from their pulpits or parents 
in their families. Is the Bible, ““God’s Word” therefore ‘‘obscene,’’ 
unmailable? Respecting words and sentences which some may not 
approve in writings on the Sex Question there is to be said in their be- 
half: the writers aim to remove social evils and use such language as 
they deem necessary to achieve their object. They ask at every step isit 
right, proper, healthful, beneficent for persons or society; they appeal 
to thought, conscience, and endeavor to bring Sexuality into the do- 
main of reason and moral obligation. They say “Seek ye first Truth; 
be sure you do nothing which you cannot justify to yourself and others 
as right; buat, if you mis-step, go wrong, doa’t skulk from the natural 
results of your action; pay the cos st, suiler the consequences of wrong- 
doing but do right next time.’”’ If one’s physical nature 7s moved by 
reading syringe advertisements need he therefore go and violate a 
woman or do any other indecent or unmanly thing? Certainly not. 
if he “holds lis body puuoet to reason,’’ ‘‘keeps his body under,’’ as 
St. Paul and Free Lovers urge, this revival of sexual energy in him 
will make him more of a gentleman; found a family, generate children, 
increase society, study and practice sf lirpiculture which is at least, 
equally | important, honorable, necessary with agriculture _ horticulture, 
architecture, 23 human beings are of accouut as well as corn, cotton, 
cattle, wood aud stone—all ‘worthy and useful in their way. Prevail- 
ing vulgarity, indecency, call for truth, advice, culture; if a bad book 
is afloat | want to see it, show it to my children, protect them from it 
by kuowledge of the wrong tir tt, and of the right as distinguished, dis- 
tinct from tt. As Judge Lows sll s said, m the Jones’ case | referred to, 
unhealthy curiosity, impure desire, indecent habits are fruit of neglect 

ou the part of parents ai nd teachers to inform children from the earliest 
years, and thereby assure intelligence, purity, modesty. How often 
pare nts evade children’s questions respecting the new-born babe, tell 
ee the doctor brought it in his bag er the storks on their backs from 
the meadow! IHLence, tnaszncerity, ay trust and that saddest sight under 
ilo. aven,—an inquiring child that cannot confide in, believe, AS parent! 
Though there is now great difference of opinion rewarding them, intelli- 
gent students of books and morals find, in Cupid’s Yokes and Leaves 
5: Grass, not evasion, deceit, obscenity ; iat welcome, knowledge, 
sincerity ; mental surgery, c tates treatment of error, and quickening 
impulse to right action, clean life. 

I + ow pass to “obscenity” as a question of law; it is well said, 
“this statute must either be defined or repealed;’’ Mr. Almy says 
nothing is done here without sanction of law; if that is really so he will 
have to beget a statute before pushing me further. Iam amazed that 
these pros socutions could have gone on so long without any legal defi- 
nition of ‘‘obscenity.”’ Alleged “crime should be so clearly defined 

that there can be no mistaking it; murder, homicide, arson, larceny, 
burglary, forgery are so defined that they cannot be mistinderstood. 

If obscenity is a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment it ought 
to be so clearly described that we may know in what it consists, and 
that accused persons may not be at the mercy of a man, or a number 


FREE SPEECH. 29 


of men who constyue what is obscene, indecent or immoral by their 
own special opinion or notion of morality or immorality. What is 
obscene to one man may be as pure as mountain snow to another; one 
man should not and cannot decide for other men.’’ Until we have a 
statute defining obscenity, in the absence of a legal definition of the 
crime or misdemeanor alleged, the prosecution improvises a statute, 
makes a law to fit or misfit the accused! The posture of affairs is 
similar to what obtaired forty years ago, or more, relative to  blas- 
phemy when Abner Kneeland-the founder and editor of the Boston In- 
vestigator was arrested and tried here ; the venerable Chas. G. Greene, 
many years editor of the Boston Daily Post, was upon the jurv and 
voled for acquittal, stood alone for Mental Liberty, holding that alleged 
blasphemy is a matter of opinion of which every citizen must judge for 
himself; it was a manly, courageous and highly serviceable act for 
which Mr. Greene is now held in affectionate remembrance by all 
friends of morality and progress. April 4th, 1878, a lady, Mrs. Abbie 
Dike Lee, was arrested in Lynn for selling Cupid’s Yokes; in May 
following she was tried in the Superior Court at Newburyport, Judge 
Brigham presiding; in his charge to the Jury, alluding to the fact that 
there is no legal definition of obscenity, he said :— 

There is no doubt but that subjects of a delicate nature can be discussed in a 

proper way ; that a hook to be vbscene must appear so to the minds of the pure 
not to the impure mere’y ; that the general tenor and purpose of the book as well 
as special passages must be considered ; that allowance must be made for freedom 
of conscience and the right of private judgment in morals; thatin asking whether 
a book outrages ‘‘publie deceicy,’’ is ‘‘offensive to chastity and morality”’ 
or tends to the corruption of youth the rights of opinion, diversities of views and 
the constitutional guarantees of liberty must be kept in mind. 
After listening to this fair and impartial view of the case by Judge 
Brigham the Jury retired; three hours deliberation leaving them stand- 
ing six to six the Judge dismissed them and released the lady who has 
not been molested since; nor was the sale of Cupid’s Yokes interfered 
with in Massachusetts afterwards. Relative to the interpretation of 
this statute, its intent and purpose I will now call two witnesses who 
voted for it in Congress, and whose opinions have weight with large 
numbers of cur Massachusetts people. First, Senator Geo. F. Hoar; 
in a letter to me written in Dec. 1877 and which was printed in Jan, 
Worp, 1878 he said :— 

The line of distinction between honest argument intended toconvincethe people 

that their opinions, laws, or social and domestic arrangements are wrong, how- 
ever mistaken or even injurious in their result such arguments may be, and writ- 
ings designed to inflame evil purposes and minister to gross and depraved tastes 
is a line [ think which our Massachusetts Jurors will be pretty sure to see and to 
keep. I have never heard anything of you which would lead me to believe you 
would knowingly write anything of the latter class however strongly I might dis- 
approve of some of your opinions. 
I will add to this a brief extract from Mr. Hoar’s notable speech in the 
United States Senate in Feb. 1878, on the Natural Liberty of persons 
involved in Woman’s Rights,—her right to prevent conception indeed 
if she thinks best to do so. Relative to the perversion of government 
and mal-use of its statutes Mr. Hoar said :— 

I do not think that in this matter of government the sex which has so far en- 
grossed that function has attained to such remarkable success that it should re- 
ceive very contemptously any suggestion tending to amend the methods which 
shall be pursued. The one clumsiest thing which men do on the face of the earth, 
the one thing in which there is the most waste, the most friction, the most crime 
the most blundering and the most fraud is this one thing which consists in goy- 
erning mankind. ‘he functions of government are very few. 


30 FREE SPEECH. 


He then goes on i» show that inno way has government a right to 
invade persons or opinions or create special offences. The other wit- 
ness, who also has an influential following in this State, is Governor 
Butler; a member of Congress when this statute was enacted he after- 
wards was invited to defend Victoria C. Woodhull against Comstock’s 
assault on her in 1872-3. Jan. 19, 1873, Gen. Butler wrote Mrs. 
Woodhull from Washington as follows :— | 
That statute was meant to cover, and does cover sending that class of litho- 
graphs, prints, engravings, licentious books and other matters which are publish- 
ed by bad men for the purpose of corruption of youth, through the United States 
mail. .. But that it was intended to cover or prevent a descriptionof fact~ alleged 
to have happened, or acts to have been done by any individual not for a bad pur- 
pose, such acts ‘‘the statute never was intended to reach.’’. . No legal wrong can 
be done under it when the case comes before a learned and intelligent judge. 
Ever since its enactment Gen. Butler has denounced the uses Com- 
stock and his backers have made of this statute for persecution of 
opinions; when, on the wave of indignation caused by my and Mr. 
Bennett’s arrest in 1877-8 petitions were circulated for the repeal of 
this statute, bearing 70,000 names they were presented by Gen. But- 
ler to Congress. He openly disapproves of the prosecution in this 
case, ridicules and denounces using the United States Government to 
‘advertise a syringe;’’ Senator Hoar and President Garfield when they 
were fellow members of the lower House of Congress earnestly coin- 
cided with Gen. Butler’s view of this statute. The N. Y. state courts 
hold the same view; in May 1878 ‘Mrs. Farnsworth’ alias Anthony 
Comstock bought two of these syringes of Dr. Sara B. Chase and ar- 
rested her for selling them; he importuned three or four grand juries 
before he got an indictment which was afterwards quashed by Judge 
Southerland on motion of Dist. Att’?y Rollins. You see, Gentlemen, 
years ago Comstock’s own state courts acted on the sensible views of 
Senator Hoar and Gov. Butler; holding it inconsistent with intelligent 
law, sound morals and enlightened policy to sanction invasion of per- 
sonal rights under these statutes.* In the case of A. Orlando Jackson 
passed upon by the Supreme Court June 4th, 1878, though the deci- 
sion related to the application of this statute to lotteries the opinion 
of the Court delivered by Justice Field had this notable passage :— 

Nor can any regulation be enforced against the transportal of printed matter in 

the mail which is open to examination so as to interfere in any manner with the 
freedom of the press, or with any other rights of the people. Liberty of circu- 
lating is as essential to that freedom as liberty of publishing; indeed without the 
liberty of circulation the liberty of publication would be of little value. 
This plainly significant affirmation of the right of opinion in Morals by 
the Supreme Court covers all I ask of your Honor and Gentlemen rela- . 
tive to the construction of this statute. In his message to Congress, 
in Dec. 1878 these noble words from President Hayes I like to read 
side by side with his emancipation signature which liberated me from 
Dedham Jail on the 19th day of that freedom month:—‘‘The protec- 
tion of liberty requires the maintenance in full vigor of the manly 
methods of Free Speech, Free Press and Free Suffrage.’’ 

But the alleged ‘‘crime”’ in this case is purely fictitious, manufac- 
tured. In the great state-trials of Tooke, Hardy and Thelwall, in 1794, 
Erskine’s irrepressible zeal, inclusive learning and unrivalled eloquence 

* Ex-Gov. John D. Long once said to Mr. Heywood:—‘‘Though we may dis- 
sent from your positions, politicians do not favor persecution ; I think youshould 
be assured your right to hold and diffuse honest opinions.’’ Lieut. Goy. Ames 
has the same views. 


FREE SPEECH. 31 


exploded the old doctrine of ‘‘constructive treason,’’ which until then 
prolonged torture and ‘‘tracked blood” through England; he ‘‘estab- 
lished law on the true foundation, that there must be some overt act 
to constitute crime and made it possible for citizens to “freely speak 
and pub‘ish opinions concerning government, without being guilty of 
treason.’’ But the savage usurpation which Erskine strangled in En- 
gland comes up here, eighty years later, in the form of ‘‘constructive 
immorality ;’’ it ‘‘makes man an offender for a word,’’ drags citizens 
before magistrates and holds them liable to excessively severe penalties 
for truth uttered in spoken or printed debate! Yet the whole thing is 
feigned, instigated, caused, a put-up-job. Whose morals have | im- 
paired? “J. A. Mattocks’’ is an imaginary person; twelve years of 
skulking decoy-and professional lying leave no morality in Ella Ben- 
der, alias Anthony Comstock to be injured. In this case the accuser 
is the immoralist, the criminal. Ifa boy is true or naturally infected 
with falsity what man is base enough to tempt him to lie? If he 
leans to theft, how wicked, by decoy or otherwise, to studiously de- 
velope in him impulse to steal! Ifhe is careless of life in using: fire- 
arms who is the wretch so devilish as to deliberately teach him mur- 
der? Ifthe naturally innocent boy was the son of either of you, Gen- 
tlemen, or your Honor’s and the perversity was implanted by an au- 
thorized government ‘‘agent’’ what words could voice your anguish? 
What barrier restrain your righteous, vaulting wrath? Essential evil 
is personized as ‘‘Satan,’’ ‘‘Devil’”’ because he instigates, begets sin; 
it is a principle of Common Law and universal morality that one who 
is the primal, persistent cause of it is an accomplice in the offence, if 
not the chief criminal. I ask your Honor, therefore, to dismiss this 
case and send home my accuser because he is an accomplice in the 
alleged crime. And I am happy to be able to refer the Court to recent 
action by Judge Treat of St. Louis and Judge Dillon of Chicago who 
threw out these cases for reasons I have given.* 

My legal right of opinion invaded by this prosecution is not only 
intrenched in fundamental law of the Union and the States but it is 
assured by the ablest and truest publicists in our history. Thomas 
Jefferson said to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1785 :— 


To suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to 
restrain the profession or propagation of principles on the supposition of their ill ten- 
dency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty; thatitis time 
enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when 
principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order, 

Edward Livingston, writing to M. Duponceau favored 

Leaving the whole class of indecencies to the correction of public opinion. .. Turn 
to any indictment for the publication of obscene books or prints, or fur indecency ot 
behavior, and you will find the innuendoes and exposition of the offence infinitely 
more indecorous, more open violation of decency than any of the works they are in- 
tended to punish and repress. In trying to bring harmless levity underthe lash of the 
law sculpture and painting will be banished for their nudities; poetry for the warmth 
of its descriptions; and music, if it excite any forbidden passion, will scarcely escape. 
But my opinion, now invaded is affirmative, not negative or neutral 
merely; as under the lead of Garrison and Phillips I urged abolition of 


negro slavery, so now I strive for the liberation of Labor and of Wo- 


* Who caused the statute to be violated? What right had the vice-society’s 
agent to exploit in that manner and violate the statute? Is not this manufactur- 
ing crime? The point is not how guilty the convicted man is or whether the 
mails were used by quacks, humbugs and worse people; but who provoked the 
commission of the crime? Ought the Federal Courts to be used to aid manufae- 
tured crime?—Judye Treat, reported in N. Y. Times, Dec. lth, 1078. 


82 FREE SPEECH. 


man; as in 1835-7 Southrons tried to suppress, by Federal statute, 
anti-slavery prints as ‘‘incendiary literature,’”’ so pseudo-conservatives 
now assail social-reform prints as ‘‘obscene literature’”’ and the blow is 


struck at reformers of all shades of opinions. My accuser says:— 

Another class of publications issued by Freelovers and Freethinkers is in a fair way 

of being stamped out. The public generally can scareely be nwure of the extent that 
blasphemy and filth commingled have found vent through these varied channels, 
Under a plausible pretense, men who raise n howl about free press, free speech, etce., 
ruthlessly trample under foot the most sacred things, break down the altars of reli- 
gion, burst asunder the ties ct home, and seek to overthrow every social restraint.— 
Anthony Comstock's 4th Annual Vice-Sociely Report. 
Comstock’s construction of the statute voices this vindictive purpose; 
but your Honor, I trust, will have a more liberal view, favoring not 
the letter of it which killeth but the spirit which assures purity in lib- 
eration. Respecting Calhoun and Jackson’s effort to suppress what 
they termed ‘‘incendiary’’ prints Henry Clay said in the U. 8. Senate: 
“They could not (rightfully) pass any law interfering with the subject 
in any shape or form whatever.’’ Senator ‘Honest John” Davis of 
Massachusetts, (of Worcester, your Honor) said:— 

It would be claiming on the part of Government a monopoly—an exclusive right 
either to send such papers as it pleased, or to deny the privilege of sending them 
through the mail. Once establish the precedent, and where will it lead to? Govern- 
ment may take it into tts head to prohibit the transmission of political, religious, or 
even moral or philosophical publications, in which it might fancy there was something 
offensive; and under this reserved right, contended for in this report, it would be the 
‘duty of the Government tocarry it into effect, We denied the right cf the Government 
to exercise a power indirectly which it could not exercise directly; and if there was 
nv direct power in the Constitution, he would like to know how they would get the 
power of the States—a legislative power at most. 

Senator James Buchanan of Pennsylvania said :—- 

If such a doctrine prevailed, the Government may designate the persons or parties, 
or classes who shall have'the benefit of the mails, excluding all others. 

Daniel Webster, ‘‘shocked” at the unconstitutional character of the whole proceed- 

ing, said: ‘Any law distinguishing what shall or shall not go into the mails, founded 
on the sentiments of the paper, and making the deputy post-master a Judge, he should 
say Was expressiy unconstitutional.” 
Seven years before this debate on the right of anti-slavery opinions a 
controversy raged relative to mental liberty in the Sunday Mail ques- 
tion; Jan. 19, 1829, Hon. Richard M. Johnson of Ky. presented to the 
U.S. Senate a Report which contained the following language notably 
pertinent to the legal right of opinion in morals I am considering :— 

The proper object of government i3 to protect all persons is the enjoyment of their 
religious, as well as civil rights, and not to determine for any whether they shall es- 
teem one day above another, or esteem all days alike holy, We are aware that a 
varicty of sentiment exists among the good citizens of this nation en the subject of 
the Sabbath day; and our governmentis designed for the protection of one as much as 
for another. The Jewish government was 2 theocracy which enforced religious ob- 
servances; and though the committee would hope that no portion of the citizens of 
our country would willingly introduce a system of religicus cocrcion in our ciyil insti- 
tutions. the example of other nations should admonish us to watch carefully against 
its earliest indication. With these different religious views, the committee are ot 
opinion that Congress cannot intertere. It is not the legitimate province of the legis- 
lature to determine what:rcligion is true, or what false. Our government is a c.vil, 
and not a religions institution. Our Constitution recognizes in every person the right 
to choose his-own religion, and to enjoy it freely, without molestation, Whatever 
may be the religious sentiments o} citizens, and however variant, they are alike en- 
titled to protection from the gevernment, so long as they do not invade the rights of 
others, Should Congress, in their legislative capacity, adopt the sentiment, it would 
estublish the principle that the legislature is a proper tribunal to determine what are 
the laws of God. It would involve a legislative decision in a religious controversy; 
and on a poirt in which good citizens may honestly differ in opmion, without disturb- 
ing the peace of society or endangering its liberties. If this principle is once introduced, 
it will be impossible to define its bounds. Among allthe religious persecutions with 
which almost every page of modern history is stained, no victim ever suffered but for 
the violation of what government denominated the law of God. To prevent a similar 


FREE SPEECH. » 33 


train of evils in this country, the Constitution has wisely withheld from our govern- 
ment the power of defining the Divine Law, Itisa right reserved to each citizen; 
and while he respects the equal rights of cthers, he cannot be held amenable to any 
human tribunal for his conclusions. Ali 1eligious despotism commences by combina- 
tion and influence; and when that influence begins to operate upon the political insti- 
tutions of a country, the:civil power soon bends under it; and the catastrophe of other 
nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequence. Under the present regula- 
tions ot the post-oftice depaitment, the rights of conscience are not invaded. Every 
agent enters voluntarily, and it is presumed conscicntiously, into the discharge of his 
duties, without intermeddling with the conscience of another, The obligation of gov- 
ernment is the same to both of these classes; and the committee can discover no prin- 
ciple on which the claims of one should be more respected than those cf the other, 
unless it should be admitted that the consciences of the minority are less sacred than 
those of the majority. 


1 will add, in passing, these convincing sentences from a distinguished 


author who has given 50 years close study to Social Science :-— 

Civil liberty has been in a sense achieved; ecclesiastical liberty also; social liberty 
remains to be achieved. The emancipated thought of the world is rapidly pro- 
gressing, and constantly invading new fields, It comes along in the regular order 
of evolution, to sexual and physiological questions. All literature is cropping 
out in all directions with an unwonted free-spokenness on these subjects. But there 
is a margin of popular prohibition here, which can only be gradually crowded back, 
known as obscenity, which the public generally concur in regarding as something very 
horrible; wlthough ideas are, for the nost part, very childish and suly on the subject. 
But such as they are, they can be readily appealed to prejudice, to deter, and to cover 
ulterior designs. Under thissappeal, in this case, the ulterior design has been to pro- 
hibit and reverse the'whole modern trend of literature toward freedom in social dis- 
cussions, To that enda whole, new, and utterly un-American code of repressive leg- 
islation has been surreptitiously foisted in upon the statute bouk ; the most unheard-of 
severity of punishment enacted, und the machinery of the law set in motion to prose- 
cute and persecute, to convict and imprison, the choicest and best men of this nomi- 
nally free and truly progressive country. Incidentally a question has arisen, among 
thinkers, of the possibility, desirableness, and rightfulness of limiting the increase of 
population, It is a tremendous and still an open question. Meantime the legal con- 
spirator steps in, decides.the question for us, against, or in the sense of old-fogydom; 
and the great United States government, forsooth, ignorantly, and at the suggestion 
of one man, enacts law against—what? Notagainst pistols and daggers and knives, 
for the Constitution has providedtfor our right to bear arms, but against a necessary 
part of a iady’s bed-chamber furniture—the women having no constitutional provision 
in their favor. What the tea was to the Revolutionary war; what the auction block 
and the overseer’s whip were to the antislavery warfare; what ‘‘indulgences” were to 
the German Reformation, ‘‘Leaves cf Grass” and the “Comstock Syringe” may be des- 
tined to become in the next and last grand campaign for human emancipation.— S/e- 
phen Pearl Andrews in Truth Seeker, 


The inalienable right of opinion, invaded by Comstock’s interpreta- 
tion of this statute has strong vindication by another line of thought. 
The great political party which, 23 years has controlled the Federal 
Executive and both houses of congress, with here and there Demo- 
cratic exception, said at Chicago, 1860, in the platform, on which 
Lincoln was nominated and elected :— 

“‘That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States,and especially of the right 
of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own 
judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection 
and endurance of our political faith depends; and we denounce the lawless invasion by 
armed force of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the 
gravest ot crimes,” 

This now historic declaration related to the institution of slavery, 
which was not thereby indorsed, but, in Lincoln’s phrase, ‘‘put in 
course of ultimate extinction’’ by leaving it an open question, an out- 
crying evil arraigned by mental, moral and social Intelligence; be- 
sieged by industrial, commercial and speculative Enterprise. By 
means of other, but far different ‘‘domestic institutions;’”’ of those 
heir-looms of the ages and birth-rights of Human Nature,—Freedom of 
Conscience, Liberty of Prophesying, Right of Private Judgement, 
Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press and the Natural Right of 


34 FREE SPEECH. | 


Association,—by these, Northrons hoped to carry liberating civiliza- 
tion to the Gulf; that the dread enginery of war, Secretary Seward’s 
‘“‘tinckling bell,’”’ arbitrary arrests, martial havoc, desolation,— States 
billowed with soldier’s graves from Maine to Texas—that these inter- 
vened, before Emancipation closed the great drama—was not the fault 
of Lincoln or his associates. These domestic institutions, loved by 
all intelligent people, ineffably precious in Massachusetts are now as- 
sailed by subtle savagery if not ‘‘lawless invasion ;’’ assailed not by the 
armed heroism which struck slavery at Harpers Ferry, but by stealth, 
decoy, falsehood, treachery,—by the repulsive monstrosities incarnated 
in that being loathed in all nations and ages,—the politico-religious 
spy and informer. Princeton is my native town; 25 years ago next 
June, I stepped from Brown University upon the Anti-slavery Plat- 
form; since then, with radical workers who pioneer reformation, with 
misunderstood, despised Idealists, ‘‘few in numbers but strong in rea- 
son;’’ incessantly engaged, ‘‘without haste, without rest’? my life has 
been a busy one, leaving me without a dollar and with too many un- 
paid debts to-day; but in all these eventful years, in my writings, 
speakings, travel, walk and conversation but one person ever ques- 
tioned my ability or disposition to use chaste language and he is the 
invasive obscenist from a not over-pure foreign city. Massachusetts 
has all-sufficient statutes against immorality, ‘‘obscenity”? and every 
other vice and crime; if 1 am the bad man this indictment says, if I 
have violated law, if I have ever invaded life or pruperty, if I ever in- 
jured any body,—if any woman or girl ever had cause to blush for 
word or act of mine, why have not the good people of Princeton, Boston 
or elsewhere found it out? I have worked in light, not in darkness; 
openly, above board, not in sly, clandestine ways; all my writings, 
views, purposes, are advertised publicly; the platforms where I have 
lectured or conventioned have always been free to all coming objec- 
tors; yet no man‘or woman ever entered complaint against me save 
this one foreign spy who ‘‘in ways that are dark and tricks that are’’ 
damnable, by permission of United States ‘‘law”’ still dogs my steps. 
Chattel slavery is dead,—but poverty, prostitution, libertinism, intem- 
perance, war,—the great social evils which baffle humane endeavor 
and ‘‘trouble God’’—these challenge my effort to remove them. Free 
Speech, Free Press, high-minded men and women,—all the elements 
which constitute a State assure my Natural Right to pursue my work 
unmolested.* Shall Massachusetts Citizenship longer be slave-hounded 
by this mercenary Federal censor who skulks in our highways and by- 
ways to regulate New England morals! Where are the grand max- 
ims and inspirations which elected Lincoln? What death-sleep has 
fallen on the successors of Chase, Greeley and Sumner that, without 
protest, they can see Liberty again and again struck down under the 
shadow of Bunker Hill, and within sight of Faneuil Hall? From the 
once pro-slavery South, from martial fields smoking with brothers’ 
blood shed in civil war, from a soldier-democrat come words grandly 
asserting rights of opinion denied me in the old Bay State. In his 

* It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold 
this prudent jealously to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest char- 
acteristics of the late revolution. The freemen of America did not wait until 
usurped power had strengthed itself by exercise and entangled the question in ~ 
precedents. They saw all the consequences in the princi ye and they ayvided the 
consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much to for- 
get it—President Madison. 


FREE SPEECH. 85 


famous order while commander of the Department of the Southwest, 
witnessing the dire-results of repressive measures which shielded 
slavery from criticism, and thereby referred the anti-slavery issues to 


the sanguinary tribunal of war, Gen. Hancock said :— 

The great principles of American liberty are still the lawful inheritance of this peo- 
ple, and ever should be. “The right of trial by jury, the habeas corpus, the liberty of 
the press, the freedom of speech, the natural rights of persons, and the rights of prop- 
erty must be preserved. Free institutions, while they are essential to the prosperity 
and happiness of the people, always furnish the strongest inducements to peace and 
order, Woe be to us whenever it shall come to pass that the power of the magistrate 
-—civil or military—is permitted to deal with the mere opinions or feelings of the pco- 
ple. Sentiments ofirespect or disrepect, and feelings of affection, love or hatred, so 
long as net developed into acts in violation of law, are matters wholly beyond the pu- 
nitory power of human tribunals, The entire freedom ot thought and speech, how- 
ever acrimoniously indulged, is consistent with the noblest aspirations of man, and 
the happiest conditions of his race, The maxims that in all intellectual contests truth 
is mighty and must prevail, and that error is harmless when reason is left free to com- 
bat if, are not only sound but salutary. Itis a poor compliment to the merits of a 
cause that its advocates would silence opposition by force; and generally those only 
who are in the wrong will resort to this ungenerous means. 


My accuser asks your Honor and you, Gentlemen, to help him 
“‘stamp out’’ opinions he lacks wit to understand; eleven years this 
heated persecution of editors and publishers impelled to investigate 
social evils has burned on,—the “‘agent”’ boasting of the numbers who 
have died under his torturing hand; Woodhull and Claflin, Geo. Fran- 
cis Train, John A. Lant, Dr. E. B. Foote, D. M. Bennett, H. L. Bar- 
ter, Dr. Sara B. Chase, and myself now again assaulted under his in- 
quisitorial use of Federal law,—the one persistent object being to sup- 
press books and newspapers expressing liberal, progressive views. 
When one steps from out-door, N. Y. life into Comstock’s office, 150 
Nassau St., he steps from the 19th back to the 10th century; steps 
from the civilization of to-day into the barbarism of the dark ages. 
In 1694, 189 years ago, England was set free from censors of the press; 
50 years before, in 1644, John Milton’s great effort for the Liberty of 
Unlicensed Printing was published; especially interesting me during 
my school days it was the subject of my graduating address on leav- 
ing the University; now that a second time my liberty and life are im- 
perilled to vindicate the inalienable right of mental freedom, some pas- 
sages from that famous discourse, especially dear to all English speak- 


ing nations, are more potent than words of mine :— 

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be 
as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, asin a vial, 
the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them As good 
almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature,— 
God’s image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of 
God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book 
is the precious lite-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to 
a life beyond life. It is true, no age can restore a life whereof, perhaps, there is no 
great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for 
the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary, therefore, what 
persecution we raise against the living labors of public men, how we spill that sea- 
soned lite of man preserved and stored up in books: since we see a kind of homicide 
may be thus committed, sometimes a murtyrdom; and, if it extend to the whole im- 
pression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying otf an ele- 
mental life, but strikes at the ethereal and fifth essence,—the breath of reason itself; 
slays an immortality rather than a life. If we think to regulate printing, thereby to 
rectify manncrs, we must regulate ull recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful 
to man. No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and 
doric. There must be licensing dances, that no gesture, motion, or deportment be 
taught our youth. but what by their allowance shall be thought honest. Those un- 
writer, or at least unconstraining, laws of virtuous education, religious and civil nur 
ture, which Plato mentions as the bonds and ligaments of the commonwealth, the pil- 
lars and the sustainers of every written statute; these they be which will bear chief 


36 FREE SPEECH. 


sway in such matters as these, when all licensing will be easily eluded. Wherefore 
did Goi create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these, rightly 
tempered, are the very ingsedients of virtue? ‘This justifies the high providence of 
God, who, though he commands us temperance,.justice, continence, yet pours out he- 
fore us, even to a profuseress, all desirable things, und gives us minds that can wanver 
beyond limit and satiety, Why should we-then affect a rigor contrary to the manner 
of God and of nature, by abridging or scanting those means which books freely per- 
mitted, are both to the trial of virtue and the exercise of truth? And though all the 
winds of doctrine werelet loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do 
injuriouslysby licensing and proh?biting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and false- 
hood grapple, Whoever knew truth put to the worst in a free.and open encounter? 
Her confuting is the best and surest. suppressing. For who knows not that truth is 
strong, next to the Almighty? She needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings 
to make her victorious; those are the shifts and the detences that error uses against 
her power. Give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps. 


Yet, 239 years after these sublime admonitions to British rulers, 
heeded, indorsed by them 50 years later,—in the yearof Christ 1883, 
not 1644, I am forced to plead for the right to circulate honest opin- 
ions in Massachusetts! Shall I plead in vain here in Boston, the 
Athens of America, for a right permitted to stirpiculturists in Plato’s 
Attica, centuries before the Christian Era? If Republicans at Chica- 
go, in 1860, could leave slavery an open question, agreeing not to as- 
sail that ‘‘sum of all villanies”’ in South Carolina, cannot the successors 
of Lincoln and Seward agree with Butler and Hancock that the right 
to ivestigate social evils, to oppose forced impregnation, to resent rape 
by syringe advertisements should not be denied under United States 
law in 1883 to old anti-slavery Massachusetts? Think, Gentlemen 
and your Honor, think of the amazing fact that, arraigned under per- 
verse interpretation of law infinitely more tyrannical, cruel and savage 
than Calhoun and Jackson tried and failed to impose I stand here plead- 
ing for mental liberty, in the city of Sumner, Andrews and Garrison! 
Beaten in argument, slaveholders flew to violence; quailing before 
insurgent Moral Sense, the irresistible Conscience of Northrons which 
deified then dethroned Webster, Southrons replied in howling mobs and 
red-handed war. Did that save slavery? Because Comstockians can- 
not refute my arguments they try to stifle reason by violence. Con- 
ception, marriage, obscenity, social evils are open questions; I cannut 
believe, Gentlemen and your Honor, that, by sanctioning persecution 
of Free Lovers, you will concede that marriage will not bear examina- 
tion. Waiving methods men assured Garrison’s right to Free Speech: 
Mrs. Martineau says When Edward Everett sent a message to the legislature in 1836, 
suggesting that a law might be pussed in Massachusetts, making it a penal offence to 
publish anything against slavery in the South, Wm, Loyd Garrison asked for a hearing 
betore the legisiature. In the midst of that meeting, the door opened, and Dr. Chan- 
ning entered the room, Assoon asthe gentlemen of the legislature saw him, they 
arose from their seats, and stepped forward to welcome him toa place by their side. 
Bat he, guzing around the room, at Jast saw where Mr. Garrison was seated —the most 


hated, despised man in Boston at that time,—going to him, hei] out his band, and sat 
by his side, to show his sympathy with hin,— Rev. James F. Clarke. 


Ten years ago Rev, Dr. C. A. Bartol of Boston, the Channing of to- 
day, stood up for mental liberty in this struggle saying, “If marriage 
cannot stand criticism it will fall and ought to fall.” In this letter he 
gives me leave to quote him now as utterly opposed to further use of 
this statute to restrict Intelligence. As with slavery, so with still 
living evils I work to abolish; because they fear light they must go. 
By peace or unrest, through government or over government, injustice 
will be corrected and progress break its way. The cye of the prophet 
sees this, his heart feels it bewailing the blindness of rulers who sus- 
tain wrong at the cost of martyrdom As he beheld the Boston of 
Judea Jesus exclaimed *‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the 


FREE SPEECH. 37 


prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee! How often would 
I] have gathered thy children together but ye wouldnot. Behold your 
house is left unto you desolate!’? And of the proud Jewish theocracy, 
and of the intellectual prestige of Greece, and of irresistible Roman 
eagles conquering them both, nought remains but the Cross of the 
hated Nazarene and Christeadom knecling towards it! I love old 
Massachusetts; every tree on her borders, every grey rock cropping 
up through her thin, unkindly soil; her churches, too often favoring 
tyranny and persecution, yet still temples of ever-living, beneficent 
faith; her seats of learning and libraries, treasure-houses of acquired 
knowledge and training schools to seek it; her courts and legislative 
assemblies, favoring much that is invasive and cruel, yet exponents of 
collective purpose to see the fair thing done; her sanctuaries of art, 
philosophy, science and domestic felicity; her intuitive electric brain 
prolific of nechanical wit, of literary, speculative and philanthopic 
Enterprise; and her irrepressible Moral Sense which made Boston the 
cradle of colonial liberty, the brain of anti-slavery prowess and the nur- 
sery of grander phases of growth yet in germ! The shadows of per- 
secution darken her record and the spirit of repression still struggles 
for supremacy. Seeking true rather than pleasant things; following 
Right, lead where it will and cost what it may, I live in the hope of 
new Moral Order, of revived Intelligence which, not resisting Social 
Evolution. will rejoice in its beneficent tendencies. In this field of spir- 
itual warfare, of moral endeavor we are all judges, all jurors, and all 
on trial :— 

‘*Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; 

Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, 

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, 

And the choice goes by forever twixt that darkness and that light. 

Then to side with truth is noble when we share her wretched crust; 

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and tis prosperous to be just; 

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, 

Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, 

And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. 

Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record 

One death-grapple in the darkness ’twixt old systems and the Word; 

Right forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,— 

Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and behind the dim unknown, 

Standeth Truth within the shadow, keeping watch above her own.’’ 

Mr. Ileywood here examined at length the evidence put in by the 
government, showing plainly that nothing anywise sufficient to sus- 
tain its charges had been proved; that its case rested entirely on the 
views of ‘‘law’’ and personal word of the ‘‘agent’’ who was a proved 
falsifier in several particulars in this very case; that, after so many 
years of profes-ional deception, lying on principle, perjury as a reli- 
gio-moral ‘‘duty,’’ in the words of Mr, Pickering before Commissioner 
‘Hallett, “to suppose Anthony Comstock can tell the truth is a most 
violent assumption ;”’ that he ‘“‘remembers to forget’’ or forgets to re- 
member whatever is not likely to convict his victims; hence his testi- 
mony cannot possibly be taken as credible by an intelligent, honest 
jury. Mr. Heywood then read the following: — 


Requests to the Judge to Charge the Jury. 


1. That, since the Right of Private Judgment in Morals and the included con- 
sequent right to utter, print and mail opiniors thereon are irreyocably assured 
in those clauses of the Federal Constitution which guarantee Freedom of Con- 


88 FREE SPEECH. 


science and Liberty of the Press, an interpretation of this statute which excludes 
opinions from the United States mails, or otherwise restricts their circulation, 
violates the purpose of the framers of this statute and is subversive of the Consti- 
tution iiself, e 

2. That since obscenity is a vice rather than a crime, the bad fruit of incon- 
siderate and vulgar habits; and since sobriety, temperance, chasiity are promoted 
by the diffusion of knowlcdge, any interpretation of this statute which hinders 
investigation of the causes of social evil or prevents vffering remedies therefor, in- 
directly favors the continuance of immoralities and hence is at war with the best 
interests of society. 

3. That a citizen cannot lawfully be deprived of his or her liberty, property or 
life on fictitious, manuiactured testimony. 

4. That the so-called evidence against the defendant in this case (excepting 
that of Mr. Gregory) was got by fraud, and, is therefore, untrustworthy ; that the 
word of the insitgator of the alleged offence and main witness against the defend- 
ant therefore cannot alone be taken as proof of criminal act or intent in a-citizen 
guilty of no overt act against any real person and concerning whom no one even 
pretends that he ever invaded the liberty, life or property of other citizens or in- 
jured them in any way whatsoever. 

5. That the instigator of the alleged crime is, both by act and intent an ac- 
complice therein ; hence on settled principles of Common Law and Sound Moral- 
ity, he, the said in-tigator and accomplice is the really guilty party to be pun- 
ished, ifany one must suifer pains and penalties—the defendant being allowed to 
go his way and mind his own business unmolested. 

6. That where words or sentences, which might otherwise be questionable, are 
used in good faith in social polemics, philosophical writings, serious argument, 
or for any scientific, literary or medical purpose, and are not thrust forward wan- 
tonly, or fer the purpose of exciting lust or disgust they are justified by the ob- 
ject of their use, and are not ob-cene or indecent within the purpose of the law. 

7. That none of the words or sentences used in the Syringe advertisement by 
aud of themselves, are obscene or indecent, that all of said words are well known 
and common words of the English language, may be properly used as such, and 
are not within the meaning and purpose of the law unless wantonly and unneces- 
sarily used so as to offend the sense of decency. 

8. That the true character of these words and whether they are obscene or not 
must be determined by the manifest intent and purpose of their use in this copy 
of Tux Worp newspaper, by their comparative ase in generally accepted literary, 
medical and reformatory works, and by the jury. 

9. That the object and purpose of the publishers of Taz Worp in printing the 
advertisement, and the intent, purpose and character of the defendant’s life, as a 
reformer, must be considered before it can be held probable that the words relied 
upon by the prosecution are within the statute. That if the general intent and 
purpose of the newspaper containing the advertisement were not to make an ob- 
scene publication the words and sentences objected to do not make it so. 

10. That the fact that the advertisement states an opinion, proclaims a princi- 
ple which is accepted as true hy many intelligent, conscientious and virtuous peo- 
ple; that preventing conception is widely advocated in medical, scientific and 
reformatory works; and that the experience and practice of married people gen- 
erally cannot be held to be again-t such a view must be considered by the jury in 
determining whether the passage objected to is obscene and that the manifest in- 
tent and purpose of inserting the advertisement affords a strong presumption that 
it is not an offence under the law. 

11. That a!though it may ee certain to the jury that the doctrines and sen- 
timents proclaimed by Taz Worp would be injurious to the community or de- 
structive to society if generally practiced. yet if the advertisement objected to was 
inserted in good faith to advocate a principle and re<ent an illegal and irrespon- 
sible censorship of the press and of morals; that if it was not manifestly designed 
to wantonly and unnecessarily offend the sense of decency, excite lust, disgust or 
to promote immorality t!.e said advertisement is not within the law. 

12. That this statute being in derogation of the Common Law, severely restric- 
tive of the liberties of citizens and ofa highly penal character should be strictly 
construed in cases of this kind so as not to violate or subvert the fundamental 
gtarantees of liberty preserved and potentially authoritative in the Federal Con- 
stitution. 

13. That when, in considering this case, doubts and uncertainties arise as to 
the meaning and intention of the publication objected to; or if there are difficul- 


FREE SPEECH. 89 


ties in determining what obscenity really is; or if the definitions of obscenity 
which may be given by the Court are of uncertain application, all reasonable 
doubts, uncertainties and difficuities which confront che jury are to be resolved 
by g ving the accused the benefit of them. 

14. That whether obscenity be considered as a question of law or of fact, asa 
press fi of morals it is wholly beyond the cons.itutional power of Congress to 

etermine; that in-so-far as this statute is interpreted to deny the Natural 
Right of women to have a voice in maternity ; or to forbid them the use of their 
own reason and conscience, in these delicate and imperatively serious matters, 
the statute thereby is made to favor forcible impregnation, ~eduction, rape; that 
its enforcement on the defendant in this case violates every accep‘ed principle of 
civil, moral end religious liberty and is an outrage on Humn Nature it-elf. 

15. That the jury are the final judges of the law and the fact in this case and 
that the definitions and rulings given by the Court are not conclusive upon them. 

16. The questions relating to the advertisement in Tus Worp are covered by 
this summary: Did the defendant on the testimony deposit that paper in the 
mail within the jurisdiction of this District? Is that advertisement within the 
prohibition of the statute? 

17. This advertisement does not come within the purview of the statute. 

18. The ‘‘notice of any kind’’ named in the statute must clearly be some 
“*notice’’ distinguishable from and differing {rom an ‘‘adyertisement’’ for the rea- 
son that ‘‘advertisement’’ is previously named in the terms of the statute. 

19. There is no complaint for mailing a paper containing any advertisement 
relating to the aforesaid articles or things. 

20. “Under this statute the burden is upon the government, when charging the 
*‘conception’’ phase of offence, to charge and to prove that the *‘article or thing”’ 
is in fact designed and intended for the prevention of conception. (a) The ad- 
vertisement is no proof of this, not even prima facie or presumptive. (b) There 
has been no testimony whatever on this point. (c) Inspection of the Syringe 
shows that it is no more than an instrumeat of cleanliness. iS 

21. The jury cannot rightfully presume that the syringe was advertised to be 
used for an illegal purpose, if it was also capable of being used for a legal pur- 
pose of health and cleanliness. Ifin doubt on this point, they must give the de- 
fendant the benefit of the douht. 

22. The advertisement in October Worp is not within the purview of the stat- 
ute inhibiting as non-mailable by reason of the statutory prohibition. 

23. If Edwards and Mattocks were fictitious and not real persons, the docu- 
ments addressed to such names with no persons behind the names are not within 
the statute. ‘The whole tenor of the statute demonstrates that it is a real and not 
fictitious person to whom the mail matter must be addressed and sought to be 
communicated with; ‘‘for mailing or delivery’ implies that the per-on addressed 
in the name addressed is a real personality, and not merely the shadow of a name 
who may be corrupted and may open the communication. ; 

24. It is the right of a woman to prevent conception, and any advertisement of 
innocent m2ans of prevention is lawful and not within the statutory prohibition. 

25. The transaction, to be within the statute, must be a real and nota fictitious 
transaction. It is only those who misuse the mails in the ordinary course of 
mailing transactions that come within the provision of thestatutes. If Mattocks 
was not a real person, and the package passed through the mail asa part of Com- 
stock’s scheme, it is not within the statute. 

26. To bring an accused party within the statute the burden is upon the gov- 
ernment to prove beyond reasonable doubt: (a) That the packages addressed to 
Edwards and Mattocks were non-mailable, (4) that the defendant deposited 
them in the mail within the District of Massachusetts 

27. If Anthony Comstock knowingly took these packages from the mail for the 
purpose, not of concealing and destroying, but of circulating the same, he is 
guilty of one phase of the crime prohibited by this statute. It is no answer to 
urge that h> dia this to detect alleged crime. He is within its words, and had 
no right to use the statute for any such purpose. 

28. The third count contains no sufficient description of the advertisement to 
make Tue Worp containing it a competent piece of testimony for the considera- 
tion of the jury. 

29. This count, which does not claim or allege obscenity, should set forth the 
advertisement in full and exact words. 

30. Because this is not done the jury should disregard entirely this count. 

31. Both the third and the fourth counts are unsustained by the testimony 


40 FREE SPEECH. 


offered, and there is a fatal variance, inasmuch as the government alleges not 
‘‘where’’ or ‘tof whom”? the syringe cou'd be obtained, but ‘*how’’ and *‘hy what 
means.’’? The advertisement shows ‘‘where’’ and ‘‘of whom,’’ but not ‘thow’?’ 
and **by what means’ the syringe could he obtained. 

32. These phrases as u-ed in the statute have, and were designed to have, dif- 
ferent and not the same meaning, and the government, having elected one set of 
phrase~, is bound by them and limited by them. . 

33. The fourth count does not properly or sufficiently purport to set forth the 
words of the advertisement inasmuch as it avers that the advertisement vegan as 
follow~-, ete. | 

34. It is no answez to this that the whole advertisement is in reality set out. 

35. The allegations as to the same page and the same column, ete., in the 
fourth count are descriptive of the offence and mu-t be proved as alleged. 

36. If all the documents inculpated were mailed in the same package and at 
one time, it was all one offence and cannot be charged and tried as three distinct 
offences. 

37. The government must prove that October Worp was deposited by the de- 
fendant in the post office at Princeton, for passage through the mail and carried 
in the mail and duly delivered by mail process at Nyack. Any doubt or failure 
of proof on these essential elements of the government’s case entitle the defend- 
ant to an acquittal.* ; 

Mr. Ucywood then concluded his address as follows:— 

Gentlemen, your Honor, lam in your power. Whether it be right 
in the sight of Truth to obey Truth rather than the wicked perversion 
of a well-meant statute judge Ye. Read by alias-decoy eyes its letter 
killeth Liberty, rekindling fires of Spanish-Inquisition in these States ; 
read in the purpose of just men,—Butler, Moar, Banks and Garfield who 
voted for it, its spirit does not favor persecution. What harm in 
being wiser to-day than yesterday? On board the “Speedwell” about 
to sail from Delft-Haven in Holland, July 1620, their old minister 
John Robinson said to our forefathers and mothers, the Pilgrims: 

I charge you, before God and his blessed angels, that you follow me no further 
than you have seen me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord bas more truth 
yet to break out of his holy word. 

In this ‘lawless science of our laws, this maze of precedents, this 
wilderness of single incidents” called government there will be quite 
enouzh retrogressive, superstitious irrationalism if we put aside all 
apparent tyranny. You, Gentlemen, come direct from the enmasse 
people who hear Truth gladly; in whom “a few strong instincts and 
a few plain rules’’ achieve ‘‘more for mankind than all the pride of in- 
tellect and thought.’’ Erskine said it took five centuries of athletic 
nerve and martyr agony to put twelve men in the jury box; when 
Giddings and Hale succeeded in putting twelve honest men between 
Southrons and their fleeing chattels there was not much left of the 
Fugitive Slave Bill. When citizens know themselves physically,as well 
as mentally and morally; realize the pregnant issues involved in this 
Sex Question; see that not my rights only areassailed but your rights, 
the right of your children and of your children’schildren to have quick 
souls in sound bodies; see that it 1s to save the very Soul of Rational 
Being that I again imperil my liberty and my life, you will not doubt 
my innocence of the charges alleged in this indictment, and say to the 
much aliased ‘‘agent,’’ ‘‘Be no more officer of ours.’’? There are oc- 
casions which, taken at the flood, tide nations towards larger, ncbler 
life; occasions when ‘‘as alone we are born, alone we die and alone 

* Of these ‘requests’? Mr. H. wrote 14, A. KE. Giles one, and Geo. W. Searle 
Fxg. the last 22—copied by Benj. R. Tucker; Mr. H. is also indebted to the 
Messrs. Wakeman in the Bennett case; toJ. F. Pickering and Geo. W. Park in 
their able and devoted detense of him, Jan. 1878; and to Messrs. Pickering, 
Searle, Cobb and J. W. Stillman Esq. in this case. 


FREE SPEECH. 41 


we go up to judgment,’’ when one man, alone in Truth, strong in what 
he knows to be right, voicing the Higher Law of morals, scores a 
mark for Progress which is a beacon light of inspiration to all weaker 
mortals!) Your Honor, chosen to the seat of reason, with eye quick 
to see subtle falsities, as well as plain equities; with ear attuned to the 
indwelling harmony of things; guided by Natural Justice which was 
before governments and will survive them, in that judicious use of 
power assured by intelligence and character,—will render such deci- 
sions as the Heart of Commonwealth inspires. ILitherto under this 
statute Free Lovers and Free Thinkers selected by his alias ‘“‘agency”’ 
to be ‘‘stamped out,’’ we,negroes ofto-day, have had few rights which 
obscenists were bound to respect. Sad indeed is it that hitherto Lib- 
erty has come mainly through martyrdom; that ‘‘by the light of burn- 
ing heretics’? we track the bleeding feet of Progress,—civilization 
advancing from prison to prison, from gibbet to gibbet, from stake to 
stake. But there are instances where official power becomes liberat- 
ing Providence, as when Judge Harrington of Vermont said toa slave- 
hunter ‘‘Show me a receipted bill of sale from God Almighty and you 
may have this man;’’ as when Lord Mansfield’s ruling made every 
human foot free that stept on English soil; as when myriads of Rus- 
sian serfs were liberated by Alexander Il’s potent Worp which was 
echoed in the stroke of Lincoln’s pen that freed four million slaves 
here. The prosecutions under this statute since Nov. 2, 1872, not 
only disgrace the noble word, ‘‘Law”’ and make government the syno- 
nym of contempt, but record a page in history which will burn and 
blacken, before all eyes, as time advances! Ihave no fears that this 
mediaeval barbarism now rioting here under the forms of law will re- 
verse fundamental guarantees of Liberty const.tutioued in these States. 
True, Comstockism is a loathsome, deadly, secret disease; but per- 
haps your Honor is to medicine it and you, Gentlemen, are the bearers 
to carry out its compost remains; perhaps the time has come when a 
Judge of “the quick and the dead’? and Jurymen strong in natural, 
health and selfrespect will say to this contagious infection ‘Thus far 
but no further!’’ Be that as it may, my effurt to vindicate Citizen 
Right, against lecherous, murderous assault, thus far is done, and I 
have no word to unsay, or step to retrace. Intrenched behind our 
Massachusetts Bill of Rights and the Federal Constitution; behind the 
Declaration of Independence and Plymouth Rock; behind Lincoln’s 
and Alexander’s emancipation decrees and Magna Charta; behind the 
Protestant Reformation, Christianity and every other utterance of the 
Infinite Word,—I say with Luther before the Diet at Worms “I 
neither care nor dare retract anything; it is neither right or safe to do 
so against Conscience. Here I take my stand; I can do no other 
wise.’’ You, Gentlemen, and your Honcr, will also obey your sense 
of right. The adverse verdict, five years ago, ruined my business, 
broke up my home, turned my family, penniless on the street, took 
my liberty and, well-nigh, my life; caged in tomb 52 of Dedham ell, 
with clipped head and in felon’s uniform, my physical vitality slowly 
but irrevocably breaking under the torturing rigors of even a liberal 
Jail_—as the days, weeks, months wore heavily on and sympathetic, 
indignant, throbbing hearts, in many States, echoed my protest, these 
precious children in their temporary, charitably-provided abods, again, 
again and again asked ‘‘Mamma, why does not Papa come home?” 
“Why does Papa not come home?’’ Gentlemen, shall 1 go home? 


42 FREE SPEECH. 


Freed from the vindictive clutch of a foreign spy shall I ence more 
be allowed to mind my own business? Liberty, home and loved ones 
whose wants it is religion to supply, whose society it is heaven to 
' share—are indeed dear tome. But what shall it profit one to have 
freedom himself if others sink under the pestilential breath of repress- 
jon? Ifthe ‘‘agent’s’’ will must longer be law in State and gospel in 
Church; if with your aid he again slave-pens me in a prison-vault to 
wait and waste away, in my narrow home of iron and granite until 
the rude corpse-box bears back this body-form to my bereaved family, 
even then the ultimate result will be worth to the world all it costs 
me and mine; weak things will confound the mighty; others and still 
others with increasing, invincible numbers wil! rise in my tracks, and 
the good fight of faith will go on, until freedom to acquire and impart 
knowledge on all subjects of human interest, the right to have, print 
and mail honest opinions is assured wherever the Federal-Union flag 
floats. 


Mr. Almy’s closing address to the jury was reported by Wm. B. 
Wright, stenographer, who, unfortunately, lost his notes; we requested 
Mr. Almy to write it out for insertion here but he ‘‘does not wish to 


As to the mischievous character and effect of this prosecution a more ill-ad- 
vised and injudicious proceeding was never brought into a eourt of justice. Here 
is a book which has been published now for more than forty years, which appears 
never to have got into general circulation, to any practical extent, and which, by 
this injudicious proceeding, has been resususcitated to the extent of thousands of 
copies.—The Lord Chief Justice in the Bradlaugh- Besant case. 

Recognizing the right of every American citizen to express his views upon mar- 
riage and divorcee, as upon all other subjects, and that every man has a right to 
buy, sell or read the same I propose hereafter to sell the pamphlet to every per- 
son who wishes a copy of it. L will hand them to the purchaser or send them by 
mail or express as desired. I do this by virtue of the rights of an American citi- 
zen. If I go to prison for it to prison it is. For every one who falls for selling 
Cupid’s Yokes ten will rise in his place to sell more.—D. M. Bennett in Truth 
Truth Secker, Sept. 7, 1878. 

Judge Benedict’s definitions were so broad and uncertain that they might be 
u-ed to condemn a very large, perhaps the larger part of the literature of the 
country as well as the isolated passages picked out of Cupid's Yokes. I say iso- 
lated passages for the court did not allow the whole book to come in evidence 
before us although we each had a copy of it inthe jurv room. I felt and still 
feel that these definitions carry the statute much: further than Congress ever in- 
tended, or a fair application of it would warrant... [ wished to maintain the 
right of the author, Mr. Heywood, and of those who agree with him to differ 
from me. .. Had the jurors been left to construe and apply the statute Mr. Ben- 
nett would never have been convicted.—Juror, A. A. Valentineix Bennett case. 

Common Law decisions declare that peace includes good order and goverr- _ 
ment ; it may be broken without an actual force, to wit: If it be an act against 
the constitution or civil government; if it be an act against religion; if it be an 
act against morality ; the question of obscenity of publication is for the jury. I 
accord to every man the fullest scope for his views and eonyictions,—in a decent 
or lawful manner or not at all. . . Infidels. as represented by the National Liberal 
League, are opposed to the Lord God Almighty maker of us all; to Je~us Christ 
the only son of God, the Savior of mankind, the sinner’s best friend and the way 
of eternal life ; to the word of God and all the precious promises therein contained 
and to the ordinances and commandments of God made for the elevation of man- 
kind designed to advance the highest interest of the human soul; to laws and 
their proper enforcement ; to moral purity ; to the Christian Sabbath ; to the sin- 
ner’s using common sense, being on the safe side, repenting of sin, believing in 
Jesus Christ and ‘hus making sure of his eternal salvation. ..I have arrested 
over four ‘undred of these creatures. . . Then came the answer to prayer, vindi- 
cation, light and joy, pos:tive proof that it is hetter to trust God than put confi- 
dence in men. . . By the Grace of the Everliving God the Liberal’s demand shall 
not be allowed.—Anthony Comstock in ‘‘ Frauds Exposed,”’ 


FREE SPEECH. 43 


repeat any part of his addresses;’’ the speech was a concise statement 
of the government’s case, followed by an earnest appeal to the jury to 
‘protect’? public and private ‘morals’? by the suppression of such 
odious publications as the indicted Worp. His ideas of ‘‘law’’ echo 
what the ‘‘agent’’ so long gave to U. S. Courts, and his “‘respect”’ for 
juries did not seem to include even one among the twelve gentlemen 
before him who possibly might have clearvisioned ideas of Justice 
and resolute personality incarnating them. Then followed 


Judge Nelson’s Charge to the Jury, 


Mr, Foreman AND GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY :—In the first two counts of this 
indictment, the defendant is charged with having deposited in the mails of the 
United States certain obscene books and publications. There is no evidence 
before you in support of these two counts: and whatever your verdict may be on 
the other counts, it will be your duty on the two first counts to return a verdict 
of net guilty. The defendant has been arraigned upon them and the Govern- 
ment has failed to susiain them by proper evidence; therefore the defendant has 
a right to be acquitted on the two first counts of this indictment. 

The indictment contains four counts in all, and only the two last, which are 
substantially for the same offense, are for your consideration, The statute of 
the United States provides that certain articles shall not he transported by mail, 
and among those articles is any *‘article or thing designed or intended for the pre- 
vention of conception ;°’ and the law further declares that any advertisement of 
such an article ts non-mailable matter, and it imposes a penalty upon any person 
who knowingly deposits, ‘‘or causes to be deposited’? in the U.S mail an ad- 
vertisement of *‘where, or how, or of whom, or by what means’’ any such article 
ean be obtained. The defendant here is charged in the last two counts of the in- 
dictment with having sent such an advertisement through the mail. In support 
of this charge the Government has introduced evidence of this character :—In the 
first place, Mr. Comstock was called asa witness and he has testified that ona 
certain day of Sept., last year, he sent a letter through the mail to the defendant 
at Princeton, signed by the name of some person other than its author,—what is 
generally known as a decoy letter—enclosing a subscription to a newspaper pub- 
lished in Princeton, called Tux Worpv. Indue course of mail a copy of Tz Worp 
came back to him through the mail. It further appears by the testimony of the 
posimaster in Princeton that such a letter as Mr. Comstock describes arrived 
there and was delivered to Mr. Heywood and a receipt therefor was signed by 
him, as the letter was a registered letter, and was returned to Comstock. So far 
there is evidence going to prove that the defendant was expected to send back 
these documents and that the defendant had received the letter of Comstock enclos- 
ing a subscription to the new-paper published in Princeton. It further appears 
that though the envelope which enclosed the paper sent to Comstock bears no 
near still according to the testimony of Mr Gregory, it is addressed in the 

and-writing of the defendant. Now the Government is bound to prove to your 
satisfaction, with such clearness that no reasonable doubt shall remain in your 
minds, that this matter mentioned in the indictment was deposited directly or 
indirectly in the post office at Princeto. in the manner which the testimony be- 
fore you tends to prove it was deposited,—that is, it must be shown to your satis- 
faction, beyend reasonable doubt, that this paper was in point of fact deposited 
by Heywood, or by hisagent. It would not be sufficient to constitute this offense 
if he turned the subscription over to the Co-operative Publishing Company and 
that they, or some agentof theirs other than Mr. Heywood, himself, did this. 
The offens* cannot be committed except by the defendant’s direct act, either by 
the direct deposit of te objectionable matter in the mail by him or under his 
express direction ; the Government is bound, therefore, to prove clearly that this 
particular paper upon which it relies to support the indictment,—and is set forth 
in the third and fourth counts—was a ed y deposited in the post-office at Prince- 
ton by Heywood himself, or by some person acting directly under his orders, 
Nothing less than that would constitute the offense charged in this indictment. 
And if this subscription was received by Ileywood and turned over by him to 
other parties, and they and not he, put the paper into the post-office, then the 
case ha~ not been proven. ; 

1t must further appear that the existence of this advertisement, supposing 
that the Government has made out that he deposited the paper in the post-office, 


44 FREE SPEECH. 


must have been known to him,—that he did it knowing that it contained this 
advertisement. If he did not know that the paper contained the objectionable 
advertisement, then the Government bas failed in proving that knowledge on the 
part of the defendant in doing the act which is essential to the offense; and 
though he may hav put the paper into the post-office, if he did it without know- 
ledge that this advertisement was in the paper, then he is entitled to a verdict of 
acquittal. ‘The Government must further prove that what it calls, in the imdict- 
ment, an advertisement, is in fact an advertisement. The words of thestatuteare : 
‘* {very written or printed card, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement or notice 
of any kind, giving information directly or indirectly, where or how, or of whom, 
or by what means any of the hereinbefore mentioned matter, article or things 
may he obtained or made.”’ It isa question whether what is claimed to be an 
advertisement, on the part of the Government, is an advertisement, and whether 
it is within that definition is solely for the consideration of the jury. You hay 
before you the newspaper containing what is called an adverti-ement, and the 
definition of thestatute. The Government must further prove that the article 
advertised is an article ‘‘designed or intended to prevent coneeption.’? That 
is a material allegation in the indictment; that isa question of fact for your con- 
sideration. The defendant has put into the ease an article which is called the 
**Comstock syringe.’’? Now. whatever the words of the advertisement may mean, 
unless the article advertised is designed or intended for this particular purpose, 
the charge has not been proved. The Government must prove this to your satis- 
faction ; otherwise the indictment fails. The advertisement and the m-trument 
itself are in the ease. If you think in revard to any of these questions there is 
resonable doubt, then the defendant shoufd hay the benefit of the doubt and is 
entitled to an acquittal. 

Then again, you must remember the purpose for which this statute was enact- 
ed. Itis not designed or intended to prohibit the publication of obscene matter ; 
its object is the prohibition and prevention of the circulation of such matter 
through the mails,a subject over which Congress has supervision. The publica- 
tion of this newspaper containing the advertisement is not the offense we are 
trying here. As far asany act of Congress is concerned that is of no consequence ; 
we hay only to deal with the charaeter of the matter circulated through the mails, 
as to whether the paver complained of contained an objectionable advertisemert 
and passed through themails. You must not confound the alleged fact that this 
newspaper was published by Heywood as having anything to do with this case, 
because it has nothing whatever to do with it. Thesole question is whether cr 
not heactually deposited, or caused to be deposited, a newspaper containing an 
unlawful advertisement, as alleged in the indietment. in the U.S. Mail. Then 
again, it is entirely unimportant what sentiments the defendant may entertain 
on various subjects. They may or may not be delusions,—that is not a matter 
we are to judge or pass upon. Youare to treat the ease precisely as vou would 
treat the ease of a clerk employed by him at Princeton, who has knowingly depos- 
ited in the U.S. mail an objectionable advertisement. The views of the man cn 
these subjects are not cf the slightest importance. You are to consider whether 
the Government has prosed beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant deposited 
in the mail at Princeton, and not elsewhere, an advertisement such as isalleged in 
the indictment, and whether or not the article which isadvertised comes within 
the meaning of the statute; that is, ‘‘an article or thing designed for the preven- 
tion of conception.’’ These arcthe facts you kav te pass upon. Itappears that 
if this newspaper was sent through the mail hy Heywood, at all, it was sent in 
response to a decoy letter addressed to him by Mr. Comstock. ‘Ihat fact does not 
constitute Comstock an accomplice with Heywood inthecommission of the offense ; 
still it is a fact which you may consider in weighing Comstock’stestimony. It is 
in one sense aspeciesot deception, hut one that is permitted for the purpose of the 
detection of crime. In weighing this man’s testimony, you must jadge him: from 
his appearance, the oceupation of his life, the manner in which he says he procured 
this newspaper from Heywood, an? from the story which he tells. The credence 
which is to be given to him as a witness is wholly for your consideration. 

As the ease of the Government depends almost wholly upon his testimony, if 
you hav substantial doubts as to his truthfulness, the defendant is entitled to the 

enefit of such doubts and you should return a verdict of not guilty. Your duty 
in respect to the first two counts of the indictment will ke to return a verdict of 
not guilty. Your verdict in the two last counts will be guilty or not guilty, as 
you may find that the eharges contained in them hay or hay not been clearly 
proved. Yon will now retire to consider your verdict. 


FREE SPEECII. 45 


October Worn, the wrapper containing it and the Comstock Syr- 
inge went out with the jury as ‘‘evidence ;”’ we were credibly informed 
that the j jury were a unit for acquittal from the first, not a man favor- 
ing conviction; but it was near L o’clock P. M,; if they did not decide 
at once the goverument must give them dinner; so in order not to 
seem hasty, i so grave a matter, and also to enjoy one more good 
meal at public expense it appeared advisable not to agree till after 
food and grace! About three o’clock they filed in, under escort of a 
deputy marshal, and announced their verdict, ‘‘ Nor Gumry’? which 
was received with manifest delight by the large audience which had 
stood by Liberty assailed during the nearly three days trial. Having 
been discharged by Clerk Bassett Mr. Ileywood retired with the peo- 
ple. Meeting Foreman Cole, the old farmer of Sutton, on the street, 
Mr. H. was about to thank him for his service to Citizen Right ; Mr. 
Cole replied, ‘‘You are under no obligation to me, I simply did what I 
felt to be right;’’ others of the jurymen in decisive words showed sim- 
ilar soul-power to rise above legal quibbles when their manhood was 
appealed to. Mr. Heywood’s address occupied four and one-half hours 
and was listened to with unabated interest to the close. Judge Nel- 
son’s charge, reported by Mr. Wright and revised by himself, reveals 
intuitive rectitude which guided his action throughout. As items of 


historic interest we insert here portions of the evidence :— 
TESTIMONY OF HENRY CHASE. 

Q. (By Mr. Heywood.) Do you remember when you called at Science Hall to in- 
terview me last May that I gave you a special invitation to remain and address the 
Convention? A. Yes. Q. And said we would withdraw our own speakers to allow 
you to doso? A. Yes,sir. Q. You are agent of the N. E. Society for Suppression of 
Vice? A. Iam. Q. Did you see or hear anything in the Free Love Convention 
when you called which seemed to youimmoral? <A. Nosir. Q, Was there anything 
in my own words or manner indicating obscenity to you? A. Nothing 

TESTIMONY OF MR. H. M. FISHER, OF FISHER VILLE Ne. 

Q. Are you an old-line reformer? A, An old-line abolitionist and reformer. Q. 
You are interested in these later movements, especialy free-love? A. I am interested 
for freedom tor everybody to express their opinions and maintain them; I want to 
hear everybody and uphold everybody in the right of expression. Q. You believe in 
Comstock having the right of his opinion? A. 1 certainly do. Q. Any one differing 
from you has the right to maintain that difference? A. I believe that, Q, How long 
have you known me? A. I guess it may be ten years. Q. Did you ever see anything 
tending to obscenity or indecency im my character cr conduct? A. [ have never seen 
anything ot the kind. Q. You have attended the conventions in Boston? .A. Some 
ofthem, Q. Did you ever hear anything lewd or indecent from my lips? A, No, 
never. Q. Can you tell us what is the tendency of these free-love publications and 
conventions to the matter of obscenity and morality? (Oljected to and excluded ) 

TESTIMONY OF E. 8. TOBEY, 

Mr. Heywood.—Mr. E.S Tobey, post master of Boston, Your Honor, Mr, Tobey 
was requested to come here this morning especially in connection with the matter of 
‘Leaves of Grass,” the Postmaster-General having ruled last summer that the book 
was mailable, and, also, I may say for another reason: To my amazement I recently 
pret that the agent of the New England Society for the suppression of Vice, a branch 

I presume of the New York society-of tthe same name, has gone so far as to visit book 
sellers in Boston without legal authority and order them to discontinue the sale cf cer- 
tain works that his society does not happen to understand I desire now to qu stion 
Mr, Tobey briefly on that point. Q. Are youa member of the New England Society 
for the Suppression of Vice?’ A. I believe Lam, sir. Q. Do you know anything of its 
purpose in the suppression of these publications? I will ask first where that society 
holds its meetings? <A. In the city of Boston. Q. At what place? A. I don’t know 
as they have had more than one meeting. Q. Does it not mect at the Young Men’s 
Christian Association rooms? (Objected to and excluded, 

TESTIMONY OF MRS. LUCY N. COLEMAN, 

Q. (By Mr. Heywood.) Your residence is where?) A, AtSyracuse,N. Y. Q. Were 
you counected with the old Garrisonian movement? A. 1 was. Q. One of its lec- 
turers? A. Yes Sir. Q. One of the supporters of the Anti-slavery Stundard in New 
York? A. Iwas. Q. And of Garrison's Liberator in Boston? A. l was. Q. In re- 
gard to my connection with these later reforms, I tuke it you differ from me on many 
points? A. 1 think somewhat, sir; I cannotypresume to Say what we all think. Q. 
Yet you believe in the right of persons holding opinions different from your own? A, 


46 _ FREE SPEECH. 


I do not nee sir how there is any right or wrong about it; we disbelieve what there is 
no forceof evidence to show. L see no right or wrong in any opinion. I believe in peo- 
ple’s being protected in their right to their opinions. Q. As to the rtght of woman to 
prevent conception? (This queviion was excluded.) Q. As to my motive in connec- 
tion with the Free Love movement,—did you ever know me to intentionaliy favor 
any immoral principle or tendesey? A. Inever did. Q. Do you remember whether 
the same epithets were used in regard to Garrison as are now used toward the labor re- 
formers and Free Lovers? A. Justthe same. Q, As to the relation of this movement 
to the Woman’s Rights question, do you understand that this is simply a later devel- 
opment of the Woman's rights and anti-slavery movements? A. Lthink so. Q. And 
a strictly moral and religious movement? <A. Yes. 
TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH P. SHEAFE OF MELROSE. 

Q. (By Mr. Ueywood) save you ever beer at Princeton? A, Yes. Q, When? 
A. Last summer. Q. Was there x convention there atthe time? A. There was. Q. 
Where did you stop?) A. [stopped at Mr. Leywood’s house, Q. How long? A. [ 
was there three or four days during the convention. Q. See anything obscene or 1m- 
moral there?) A. I saw there a nice harmonious home; everything was nice and well 
arranged, IT saw nething out of the way in any shape. Q. Any statement from my 
neighbors about obscenity or immorality? A. [did not hear or sce anything of the 
kind. Q. You huve attended the conventions in Boston? A. Yessir. Q. You have 
read tho Princeton publications? A. Many of them, Q. You have read THE WorbD? 
A. Yessir, regularly. Q. You have seen some things in it that you did not agree 
with? A. Yessir. Q. Did you ever discover anytaing that, so far as the purpose of 
the publication went,tavored obscenity or indecency? A. Idon’t think I saw anything 
tending to demoralize or injure anyone. [ have not always agreed with what [ have 
seen in THE Worv. Q. You understand that the writers in THEsWorD are responsi- 
ble simply for their own opinions and that the editor never endorses the epinions of 
othez persons unless he says so?) A. [always understood that to be the fact. Every 
one is responsible for what he writes in the paper or says in the Conventions, Q. 
People are responsible for what their name is signed to and nothing else? A. As long 
as I have been acquainted with the conventions T have been an carnest opponent of 
yours and of the doctrine preached at those-conventions although I have more recent- 
ly found that [ understood and knew the matter a little better. I have not felt the 
strong bitterness of hostility to it that L formerly did. I think some five or six years 
ago it seemed to be my business to oppose you and your doctrine and all those that 
preached it. It seemed to be my work as faras I had any there; and let me say I was 
astonished beyond measure that so good people and that so good a man,as I know Mr, 
Heywood to be, preached such bad doctrineeas he did, and I haveealways fought the 
doctrine while I have given the right hand of fellowship to Mr. Heywood and I found 
him to be aremarkably pure, good, liberaland free-mindcd man, And of his house 
when [ was at Princeton Lean say Ll never saw a more harmonious, beautiful home 
than it. Everything was neat, pleasant,,.greeable and above-board. I could notspeak 
too highly of Mi, leywood and his fiunily. Q. In regard to the character of our work 
as to doing things ‘‘on the sly,” and insecret when in Boston, using other people’s 
names and soon? A. Ido not think you could do it that way. You are your own 
worst enemy and preach more than you mean, I think, all the time, I know full well 
you speak cpenly. Q. In regard to the discussion on the platform, are our opponents 
always welcome to show wherein we are wrong? A. I donot think you would shut 
off any one; allare welcome. Q. Whether Comstock would be as welcome if he came 
into the conventions as anyhody else? A. I think anybody would be weicome and 
any doctrine and any cpposition would be welcome there. I fought you year by year 
and yet am as welcome to-day as at the outset. 


Feb.-Mar.,’82, obscenists coerced Osgood & Co. into cowardly sub- 
mission to their lascivious censorship, designating 24 passages in 
Leaves of Grass which, backed by Dist. Att’y Stevens’ threat, they 
ordered expunged, before the book would again be allowed sale in Bos- 
éon! Were is the venerable poet’s unterrified, manly reply :— 

CAMDEN, N. J., May 23d, 1882. ~ 

J.R. Oscoop & Co.: DEAR Sirs; Yours of Zlst received, with the curious list, (I 
suppose of course from the District Attorney), of ‘‘suggestions,”’ lines, pages, pieces, 
etc., to be “expunged.” The list, whole and several, is rejected by me, and will not 
be thought of under any circumstances, Respectfully, WALT WHITMAN, 
May 28-9, by special appointment, Dr. J. H. Swain publicly, as scrip- 
ture-lessons, read to three sessions of the N. HE. Free-Love-League 
Convention the two ‘‘ohscene’’ poems which appeared in Aug. Worp 
and on the ‘indicted’? Worp Exrra; this was unanimously adopted: 

RESOLVED:—That effort to sappress Walt Whitman's Poems for thew alleged ob- 
scenity, because oflicious exponents of “law and order” lack wit to understand them, 
shows the continued, lascivious stupidity voiced by pulpits and courts, the religio-poli- 
tical lewdness still mistaken for culture and purity; that, while now as heretofore 


FREE SPEECH. 47 


s seking immediate and unconditional repeal of all statutes, state or national, restrict- 
sng freedom of press or muils, we proclaim it the natural right if not the positive duty 
of citizens to circulate the prohibited products of Thought or Art which impertinent 
censors of morals condemn, 

Timely defiance appeared in successive issues of Liberty :— 

LEAVES OF GRASS.—A new edition, reprinted from the Osgoods’ plutes without 
alteration or emendation, of the book which Ralph Waldo Emerson, during his life, 
hailed as ‘‘the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet con- 
tributed,” and which, after his death, was suppressed as ‘‘obscene” by the authorities 
of Massachusetts at the instigation of the Society for the Suppression of Vice. Price, 
$2. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price. Address: BENJ. R, TUCKER, Box 3366, 
Boston, Mass. 

To OLIVER STEVENS, District Attorney of Suffolk County; George Marston, Attor- 
ney-General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; E S. Tobey, Postmaster of Bos- 
ton; Anthony Comstock, Secretary and General Agent of the Society for the Suppres- 
sion of Vice; and all other enemies of Liberty whom it may concern: You are here- 
by distinctly notified—all of you in general, and you, Oliver Stevens, in particular— 
that 1 have in my possession, and do now offer for sale, copies of the work advertised 
above. If you, or any one of you, believe, or affect to believe, that, in so doing, I am 
committing an unlawful act, you are invited to test the question whether twelve men, 
fairly chosen by lot, can be found in Massachusetts sufficiently bigoted, or intolerant, 
or hypocritical, to share with you, or pretend to share with you, such belief, or affec« 
tation ot belief. And, to avoid unnecessary trouble and make the evidence of sale in- 
disputable, I offer, on receipt from any one of you of an order for a copy of the work, 
to deliver a copy to you in my own person, at such place in Boston as you may desig- 
nate, and take payment therefor, Yours, disrespectfully, BENJ. R. TUCKER. 

Though all supposed the battle over, contrary to the old maxim that 
lightening never repeatedly strikes one object, bigot wrath again 
flashed on Mr. Heywood, May 23d, when Dep. Sheriff Chas. N. Hair, 


took him suddenly from home on this Bench Warrant :— 

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, ‘ 
Worcester S.S. To the Sheriff of our County of Worcester, or his Deputy, Greeting: 
We command you, that, immediately, without delay, you take the Body of Ezra H. 
Heywood of Princeton, in said county of Worcester, (if he be found within your pre- 
cinct) and him safely keep, so that you have him forthwith before our Justices of The 
Superior Court now hoiden at Worcester, on the second Monday of May, A. D. 1883, 
shen and there, in our said Court to answer US upon an INDICTMENT found against 
him for distributing a certain printed paper containing obscene language manifestly 
tending to the corruption of youth, at Worcester in said County, on the first day of 
February, A. D. 1883, set forth in said indictment. 

HEREOF FAIL Not to make retnrn of this Writ with the doings hereon. Witness 
Lincoln F. Brigham EsqQuir& at Worcester the eighteenth day of May in the year of 
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three. Wm. T Harlow, Asst. Clerk. 

Held for trial in $1,000 bail, H. H. Bigelow surety; liable by Mass. General 
Statutes, Chap. 207, Sec. 15, to five years in states-prison and $1,000 fine, Mr. 
H.’s *‘offence”’ is alleged distributing one of a series of ‘* Leaflet Literature’’ pub- 
lished by Angela T, Heywood which appeared in Jan. Worp Y. L. 11, as ‘*The 
Woman’s View of It—No. 1;”’ in it she resents Comstock’s repeated assaults on 
her family and woman universally, in his effort to supervise conception, force im- 
pregnation by act of Congress; that is she opposes rape! A legitimate, neces- 
sary, all-wise proper part of the defence it was specifically, entirely unintrusive 
until savage purists flared it in face of the public by a third raid on Right; post- 

oned four times the case (May 13, 84) is still pending. Duncedif not damned, 
y perverse frenzy to mind other people’s business, church-state villiany still in- 
vades Civil Right and duty to acquire and impart knowledge; in behalf of Per- 
sonal Liberty and moral obligation; to assure religious growth ,zesthetic Sobriety, 
mental vigor and Spiritual Rectitude we demand immediate, unconditional REPEAL 
of all state and national ‘* obscenity laws,’? and welcome co-operation from alert 
Intelligence to annihilate the infamous Censorship of the Press by which licen- 
tious, rioting ecclesiasticism now assails intuitive purity and Moral Order in 
these States. Thanks to all-vho have helped win points in this struggle for 
Rights worth prisons and scaffolds to vindicate ; but while some languish in dun- 
geons and others are threatened with torture for their Faith; while savage ‘‘stat- 
utes’’ hold nations under a reign of terror, out-ery becomes us better than exul- 
tation Whaterer ‘‘cultured’’ cowards, ‘‘scientific’’ tyrannists, slave or ‘‘free’’ 
religionists may say to the contrary, ertznclion of restrictive hindrance to ENTER- 
PRISE is the watch-word of Progress, and liberating tendencies of irresistible 
Evo ution, transcending stealthy usurpation hostile to human well-being, move 
all intelligent Citizens to earnest, decisive AcTION. 


48 FREE SPEECH. 


May 27, 1884, Mr. Heywood’s State case was called. for trial at 
Worcester, W. 8S. B. Hopkins, Dist. Att’y for the prosecution, Robert 
C. Pitman of Newton, Judge; Mr. Heywood was prepared to conduct 
his own defense as in Boston, but H. L. Nelson Hsq., son of Judge 
Nelson, volunteered to present and argue a motion to quash; it being 
specifically a legal point Mr. H. gladly accepted Mr. Nelson’s service 
which was so intelligent and effective that Judge Pitman took time 
to consult his associates and finally nulled the outrage, news of his 
action reaching Mr. Heywood June 16th. Mr. Nelson showed that 
the indictment did not fully and plainly set forth to whom the articles 
complained of were delivered, the manner and mode of distribution, 
or that the articles were obscene, or that the defendant knew they 
were, or that he intended to corrupt youth. Abstract of Mr. Nelson’s 
brief bearing on rights of opinion, commerce and association :— 

Kirst. As tothe importance of alleging the intent. The Mass. cases are, Com- 
monwealth vs. Kilburn, 119 Mass. 297; vs. Barrett, 108 Mass, 302; vs. Bean, 11 Cush, 
414; vs, Clifford, 8 Cush, 215; Tully vs. Commonwealth, 4 Met. 357. 

In Commonweaith vs. MeGarrigill, Superior Ct, (Suffolk) 1855, Abbott, Chief Jus- 
tice says, ag to the necessity of alleging knowledge in an indictment uaider this 
statute: ‘‘Generally, intent, knowledge, is of the very essenceof crime, «nd there 
must be very strong reasons shown to exist to take any case out of the applization of 
the general rule. There certainly appears to be no such considerations app i.able to 
this case, and to hold that this offence may be committed by a blind man who sells 
books for a livelihood, and who happens innocently to sell an obscene pablication, 
would be giving a construction to the statute manifestly harsh and not required by rules 
of law.” 

In U.S. vs. Carll 105 U. S. 611, (last case on subject) Judge Gray held that it was 
necessary to allege knowledge under a U. S. statute against passing counterleit 
money, even though the statute did not purport to make knowledge essential to 
the crime. In Chitty’s Criminal Law (vol. IL p. 42) his form of an indictment for dis- 
tributing obscene literature, contains an allegation of knowledye, ‘intendins there- 
by to corrupt the morals of youth.” These authorities overrule Heard’s Criminal 
Luw, the Mass, book which all lawyers use in drawing up indictments, 

Second. Astothe indictment not alleging to whom the printed paper was distributed. 
In allthe torms this is alleged, LtLeard Crim. Law p. 535, So in all the adjudged cases, 
Commonwealth vs. Holmes, 17 Mass. 336; vs. Tarbox, 1 Cush. 66; vs, Lawrence, 
Worcester, May T. 1878, So in indictments for illegal sale of intoxicating liquors, it 
must ba alleged to whom the liquor wassold,—Commonweulth vs. Thurlow, 24 Picker- 
ing 374; vs. Doyle, 11 R. I. 574, So in indictments tor illegal gaming must allege 
With whom game was played. Bishop on Stat. Crim. §894. So for larceny & adul- 
tery must be alleged to whom property stolen belonged, or with whom defendant 


committed crime. It is an elementary rule of criminal pleading that the crime 
must be described with great particularity. 


Judge Pitman’s incidental remarks were liberal and sensible indicat- 
ing that, if the case had been tried before him, his rulings would have 
ranked him with Lowell, Nelson and Treat, rather than with Clark, 
Aldrich and Benedict. In behalf of Citizen Right basely assaulted 
Mr. Lleywood is under special obligations to Mr. Nelson, J. A. Titus 
and W. A. Williams of Worcester; to Geo. W. Searle, J. F. Picker- 
ing of Boston, and other lawyers. The Citizen’s Petition to drop the 
case, (rawn by Stephen Pearl Andrews, hvaded by Mr. and Mrs. P. 
A. Beaman, and presented by Dr. O. Howe and Geo. L. Bliss, in 
July 1883, to acting Dist. Att’y Gaskell, who fathered if he did not 
beget this ignoble prosecution ; aud another paper, for use in evidence 
if Mr. U1. had been tried, the elaborately strong protest also drawn by 
Mr, Andrews, and signed by many leading Princetonians, one half of 
them women, were potent factors outworking final victory. To. the 
liberal press and liberals generally Mr. Heywood is indebted for reso- 
lute, timely aid; the now dead indictment was a libel on him, person- 
ally, and on every other citizen live enough to oppose prevailing evils. 
Not obscene, the indicted Leaflet was au electric protest against male 


FREE SPEECIL. 49 


effort to supervise maternal function; its author, “the woman in 
the case’’ is man’s peer,— 

“No weakling girl, who would surrender will 
And life and reason, with her loving heart, 
To her possessor: no solt clinging thing 
Who would find breath nlone within the arms 
Of astrong master, and obediently 
Wait on his whims in slavish caretalness; 
No fawning, cringing spaniel to attend 
His royal pleasure, and account herself 
Rewarded by his pats and pretty words, 
But a sound woman, who, with insight keen, 
Has wrought a scheme of lite, and measured well, 
Her womanhood; has spread betore her feet 
A fine philosophy to guide her steps; 
Has won a iaith to which her life is brought 
In strict adjustment —brain and heart mean while 
Working in conscious harmony and rhythm 
With the great scheme ot God’s great universe 
On toward her being’s end.” 


The women of America and of the world will some day be bright 
enough to sense the priceless service Mrs. Heywood did human kind 
in resenting the lascivious devilism which instigates persecution of 
Free Lovers. Her baby boy, Angelo Tilton Heywood, was in the 
Free Speech fight early; once, before birth, he threw the case over 
from Aug. to Oct ; again, after birth, he continued it from Oct. to 
Jan.,—humane thought for Mrs. Heywood’s Marernat Service, mov- 
ing Judges Barker and Aldrich to postpone Mr. H.’s trial twice. 
Sixteen months, religio-political tyrannists, the vice mongers,* who 
In dark Cabals and mighty juntos meet, 
held Mr. Heywood Liable to states prison penalties on a blind charge, 
and his accusers yet lurk in clandestine espionage! In the United 
States raids they gave us, at least, a decoy whose ‘‘morals’’ were sup- 
posed to be injured; but the Worcester assault is anonymous. Ff. T. 
Blackmer, Mr. Hopkins’ predecessor was a mercenary tool of these 
nondescript skulks; Oct. 31st, 1883, when Mr. I. was called to trial, 
thinking he had him in his power Blackmer, by calculating merciless 
device (saying, ‘‘We must put a stop to the circulation of this stuff’ ) 
tried to crowd Mr. H. into a corner where he could rush the case 
through, suddenly, to conviction already predetermined on and pre- 
arranged in his own mind! It was one of the darkest hours in all 
these tragic years; Mr. H. knocked at the only door out, a motion for 

* Let us lay wait for blood: let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause; let us 
swullow them up alive as the grave, . . We shali fill our houses with spoil.—Prov. 
1, 11-13. 

The leading corporator, Homer B. Sprague, complains that I attacked the motives 
of the Vice Society. . . Lying is surely a vice, and sometimes a crime. Yet the So- 
ciety which secks incorporation has been known to use it as a means of suppressing 
other vices even less dangerous to the public. A New England ‘“Goodocracy.” with 
$75,000 worth of plant, it is nothing but “aristocracy,” which, in spite of its able een- 
sorship of morals, has always failed hitherto. The first thing I knew of this Socicty 
was that two modest looking women called at my office in great aMliction. One of 
them told me that she and her husband were strangers in the city, and had come here 

‘to sell a particular hook, which she showed me, He was arrested for having that 
book, and had been in jaila week from inability to obtain bail. I looked over the 
book caretully, aud, not being able to discover any immorality in it, gave the re- 
quired bail, The author was tried, and of course acquitted, otherwise tie Bible So- 
ciety would not be safe. Me was too poor to get damages for false imprisonment; and 
I have not heard that the Society had the magnanimity to offer him any compensation 
for the injury it did him. I hope the Legislature, it it sees fit to grant the charter, 
will insert into it a clause compelling the Society to pay exempliry damages in cuse 
it fails to ecnvict, and perhaps it may be well to prohibit lying as a means of prosecu- 
tion.—Elizur Wright in Boston Herald. 


50 FREE SPEECH. 


continuance, which Judge Aldrich granted, in consideration of Mrs. 
Heywood’s illness. But his incidental rulings coincided with Clark, 
Benedict and others of Comstock’s assistants called judges, viz. that 
motives and character are immaterial; that (inferentially) the spirit 
and purpose of assailed prints are not to be considered; that words 
and sentences may be wrested from their context and branded as ‘‘ob- 
sene;’’ that the Bible, Shakspeare, Byron and other unquestionably 
(on that ruling) ‘‘obscene’’ books must not be considered by the jury 
in comparison with indicted matter, and that ‘‘no man may set up 
his judgment against the laws of the state.’ * Mr. Heywood was not 
permitted to look into the faces of his accusers in a preliminary ex- 
amination; yet, by command of these nameless censors of the press 
and of morals who dare not appear in open daylight, Blackmer, jump- 
ing trivial matters of trial, verdict and sentence, having Mr. H. already 
states-prisoned, from the seat of Executive power, offered to‘‘pardon’”’ 
him as follows :— . 

All E ask is to have the business of distribating such tracts and papers stopped; if 


Mr. Heywood wiil agree to stop and stop at once that is the end of it.— Worcester 
Gazelte, Nov. 2, 1883. 


That is what Popes said to Luther, what the Stuarts said to Milton 
and Sidney, what Geo. HI said to our ancestral rebels, what slave- 
holders said to Garvison and John Brown. The ‘‘tracts and papers’’ 
assaulted include not only discussion of Sex Questions, -but printed 
matter opposing usury, rent and other speculative robbery. When 
Mr. H. was in prison for his Faith, in 1878, a Worcester capitalist, 
from whom he had natural right to expect very different treatment, 
evicted his family leaving Mrs. H.. and their children penniless in the 
street; Labor Reform gospel is the ‘‘stuff?? which especially troubles 
Worcester tyrannists. Ignorance of law, order and morals makes 
prosecuting attorneys tools of superstitious malice. Repressive cen- 
sorship imposed on Citizens by obscenists breeds the very vices they 
pretend to oppose, and poisons the sources of being. Purity, conti- 
nence, sobriety,—all the virtues flow from within, from quickened 
Reason and Conscience developing Character. Free Lovers are about 
the only exponents of morality whose Faith and Philosophy will bear 
examination. Motive, opinion, purpose; right to do what we will, 
maintaining the equal right of all others,—Freedom of Conscience in 
Morals, which Liberals have worked for, many years, is now affirmed 
in Judge Pitman’s action. Hereafter obscenists must charge and 
prove wrong intention; with Pitman’s view on the bench f neither 
Lant, Foote, Heywood or Bennett could have been convicted; every 
invasive wrong must go when Equity is incarnate in the court of opin- 
ion. Few have been able to see through the ignorance, hatred, im- 
purity and perverse frenzy which have animated prosecutors, and re- 
cognize the rights, spirit and purpose of Social Evolutionists; yet here 

* In 1842-3 Judge Aldrich taught school in Tappahannock, Va., ‘‘set up his 
(anti-slavery ) judgment against the state,’’ was shooed out therefor, settled late¥ 
as ‘‘conscience-whig’’ lawyer in Barre, Mass., and, on the Free-Soil stump, 
voiced *‘treason’’ to Fugitive-Slave law with Mr. Heywood, then a conservative 
Webster-boy whig, among his listeners ! 

+ When Mr. Heywood was arraigned, May 23d, 1883, and Mr. Gaskell insisted 
on his trial, within 45 hours of his first knowledge of the case which Worcester 
clandestines had been stealthily working up during four months, Mr. Heywood 
appealed to Judge Pitman who continued the case till Aug., saying, ‘*The rights 
of the majority, of well-to-do, popular people are rarely imperilled; courts exist 
to protect the rights of minorities, of unpopular citizens,”’ 


FREE SPEECH. 51 


and there are minds conservative of all that is right in traditional 
morality, because one with the indwelling harmony and progressive 
growth of things. * 

A graduate of Brown University, Sept. 1856, Mr. Heywood thereby 
became A. M., Master of Arts; June 1878, he received the degree of 
U.S. C., United States Convict; in this seven-years struggle for Citi- 
zen Integrity he has been indicted three times,—in Dec. 1877, for 
alleged-mailing Cupids Yokes and Trall’s Sexual Physiology; in Dec. 
1882 for alleged-mailing Cupids Yokes, extracts from Leaves of Grass 


and a syringe advertisement; andin May 1883 as follows:— 
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

Worcester, ss. At the Superior Court, begun and holden at Worcester, within and 
for the County of Worcester, on the second Monday of Muay, inthe year of our Lord 
one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three THe Jurors for the Commonwealth, on 
thetr Qath present, 

That Ezra WH. Heywood of Princeton in said County, on the first day of February in 
the year eighteen hundred and eighty-three, at Worcester in said County, did distri- 
bute a certain printed paper containing obscere language manifestly tending to the 
corruption of the morals of youth, which printed paper containing obscene language 
tending to the corruption of the morals of youth and distributed us aforesaid is of the 
tenor following thatis to say, (here the Leaflet was fixed in) contrary to the form of 
the statute in such cass made and providel. A true bill, Ashley M. Rice, Foreman; 
Francis A. Gaskill, District Attorney Pro tempore. A copy (except of the printed 
paper) attest, Wm. T. Harlow assistant clerk. 

Here are the grand jurors who ‘‘found”’ this ‘‘true bill:’”’— 

Ashley M. Rice, Grafton, Foreman; Hiram P. Bemis, Paxton; Augustus W. Burt, 
Westborough; Nathan S. Caswell, Douglas; Eben N. Coffin, Hubbardsten; Albert H, 
Edgurton, Sturbridge; Chas. If. Glazier, Fitchburg; Chauncey C. Hemenway, Barre; 
Lewis F. Johnson, Southborough; Chester B. Keudall, Gardner; Emory W. King, 
Charlton; Jacob S, Miller, Winchendon; Albert H. Newhall, Sterling; Charles A. Rice, 
Northborough; George N. Richardson, Holden; Wilson Smiih, Phillipston; Frank H. 
Southworth, Hardwick; Marcus D, Cronan, Daniel H. Eames, John W.Toole, Franklin 
B. White, Wm O. Wilder, George Woodbury, Worcester. 


Mr, and Mrs. Heywood’s own townsmen and women said of it:— 

TO THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY OF THE COUNTY OF WORCESTER, MASS., SIR:—We, 
the undersigned Citizens of Princeton, in said county, in view of the fact that Ezra BH. 
Hey wood has been again arrested and is liable to be sent to States Prison for five years 
or some fess term, for expressing honest opinions and convictions, in the usual Way, 
respectfully represent that: Ezra H. Heywood is a respected townsman and neigh- 
bor of ours; that we know him well, and know him as a good citizen, attending indus- 
triously to his own-business, and never invading the equal right of other citizens to de 
the same; that be has been arrested and tried twice already (before this case), on 
substantially ihe same charges; and that he was in the first case unconditionally re- 
leased, end in the second case acqaitted. 

He was released by President Hayes on the opinion of Attorney General Devens 
and ot many others, thatthe jury had erred; and that there is absolutely nothing in 
Mr. ifeywood’s publications which partakes in the slightest degree of the nature of 
obscenity, the intention being taken into the account; but that they are earnest ex- 
pressions of his opinions, as plain speaking was characteristic of the radical Aboli- 
tionists he formerly served with. He was acquitted in the second case on the same 
ground. Under these circumstances we submit that the present prosecution is uncalled 
for. it is the provision ot our jaw that no citizen shall be twice imperilled tor the 
samo olfence. We believe that the spirit ot that wise principle of the law is being 
violuwed in this case upon Mr. Ileywood; and that this continued and determined 
assault on him; the endeaver tv get’ him behind bars; to break up his family and basi- 
ness; ana t»> drive Mrs. Heywood and their children into the street, on account of his 
and their opinions has gone to u length which partakes of persecution; which fact is 
likely to do more harm to the public morals than anything which Mr, Heywood has 
done or can do, by his publications. 


* Judge B. F. Thomas, the able, old-time Worcester lawyer, said to Mr. Hey- 
wood, in 1877, after carefully reading Cupids Yokes, ‘‘It is a severe arraignment 
of marriage; the fact is, and danger tv you is tn the fact that people will not un- 
derstand you; on the grave and subile moral issues involved juries may be easily 
swung the wrong way by perverse attorneys.’? Hon. H. W. Paine, the clear- 
eyed jurist of Boston said of Cupids Yokes, ‘‘It contains much that all people, 
especially youth should study; but, Mr. Ley wood, there is perfect liberty in these 
States lo de everything but right; ¢ha/ is always criminal and perilous.”’ 


LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY OF LLU 
Ay URBANA CHAMP 


cy ae FREE SPEECH. 


And we, therefore, pray: That the indictment in question may restin such a way 
that the said Heywood may have full and free exercise of the time-honored and dearly 
fought for liberty of Free Speech and a Frec Press, 

BASIS OF THE PRINCETON DEFENCE COMMITTEE IN THE MATTER OF EZRA H. HEYWOOD. 

We, the undersigned Citizens ot the town of Princeton, in the county of Worcesier, 
in the State of Mass., 2rrespective of religious or political«differences, constitute our 
selves into a Defence Committee, to endeavor to prevent an undue and excessive pres- 
sure Bpor our townsman and fellow citizen, Ezra 1. Heywood, and his family, under 
the form of legal prosecutions, for their views and Modes of Expression; which pres 
surc may have degenerated into Persecution for Opinion, contrary to the great Ameri- 
can doctrine of Free Speech. 

We believe in fair play, ag well for those from whom we differ most widely, a3 for 
ourselves; 1nd many, probably most of us do differ, more or less widely from Mr, 
and Mrs. Heywood, in respect to certain doctrines which they hold and promalgite; 
anit ii respect to the good or bad taste of the methods they adopt of presenting the n; 
but w : hold tenaciously to the right ot Free Thought, Fres Speech and a Free Press, 
as the bulwarks of our own Liberty; ag something the possession of which has cst 
countless sacrifices to achieve it; and which is too precious to be risked or throwa 
away, through any unwise zeal in the prosecution of others. We cannot but remen- 
ber that we or our children may sometime have unpopular opinions to defend; and wa 
do not desire that we or they should be sent to the States Prison for five years, or for 
any term, for expressing then. . 

We are the fellow townsmen of Mr. and Mrs. Heywood; we know them well; and 
we knew them in all other respects, than this of their method of expressing their 
opinions, as good and estimable citizens, Their children ore a3 well reared and ag 
moral as those of other citizens, anct in some respects they excel; and we know of no 
complaint made of either parents or children, excepttin what relates to their views, 
and to what they regard ay the necessary forms of speech to get their ideas expressed, 
They may be terribly mistaken in all this, but it does not follow that fines, imprison- 
ment, or other forms of persecution are the right remedy, We do not desire to see 
Massachusetts again disgraceddy a new career of persecution, as when witches were 
burned, or when Quakers, Gaptists.or Abolitionists were ‘punished or mobbed, in the 
past, through ignorance or prejudice; and merely because they held strange and what 
seemed to-their neighbors, of those days, immoral views. Massachusetts is now again 
muking her history for the future; aud We are anxious that her good name shall not 
be tarnished agaim by any mistake-or over zealous invasion of the aights of the citizen. 

While, therefore, but few of us participate in the views, or approve of the hterary 
modes of expressiun of Mr. and Mrs. Heywood upon certain social questions of great 
delicacy; winle most of us, on the contrary expressly dissent from, and repudiate theiv 
views of Stirpicultaure, the Sex Question; wed not believe that anything they have 
said or published is said or p lished with an obscene or lascivious purpose; bat rather 
as their earnest, and it may be very indiscrete, mode of uttering their convictions — 
though this plain spoken and uncompromising advocacy of reform was learned in the 
good old school of radical abolitionisn in which both Mr. and Mrs, Heywood zeal- 
ously wrought; and we unite on this Defence Committee to prevent, if possible, a 
great wrong from being done; to hinder the infliction of an injustice; and to vindicace 
the goo }nume of Missachusetts us the champion of bouman rights, And we matually 
pledge ourselves to use oar influence ant best exertions in this belmalf, im favor of 
Free Thought, Freedom of Spesch and the Freedom of the Press—binding ourselves in 
no manner whatsoever in favor of or against ideas which different citizens may choose 
to promulgate. In other words we hold to Freedom as a Principle and will stand by 
it; dissenting from whatever we deem wrong, we yet do not, unless there is actual 
invasion of life or property, fesl required ourselves, or to allow citizens, without pro- 
test, to persecute others for differing from us in‘opinion. 

These papers (alluded to on page 48) are the ‘‘true bill’? found by 
neighbors of the accused; as to whether his doctrines ‘“‘tend to cor- 
rupt the morals of youth’? Mr. Heywood was prepared to present his 
own children as evidence in his defence, with sworn statements from 
their Teacher, the School Committee and Town Clerk that the chil- 
dren are models of intelligence, sobriety and culture. Below we 
give specimen views from leading Liberals :— 

Mrs. Heywood-objects to the compulsion of her sex to bear paupers for the 
Tewk-bury Almshouse, where their bodies may be prepared for the dissecting 
tables of Harvard, and their skins tanned for the leather trade! Every freeman is 
personally interested in the outcome of these trials. The Heywoods insist that 
the Sex Question shall be discussed. ‘The fight is for the freedom of discussion— 
practically the freedom of the press.—foote’s Health Monthly. 

These leaflets are not obscene; they are honest, earnest discussions of a great 


FREE SPEECTI. 53 


question. They throb with passionate conviction. A man’s heart and a woman’s 
heart burn and quiver in every sentences. Therais absolute sincerity. The yery 
fury of utterancs cnly shows the intensity of the thought that thus leaps like a 
volcanic flame. Words so trem:ndously freighted wita human feeling eannot be 
obscene; they are true to the man’s and woman’s nature.—S. P, Putnam in 
Trut» Seeker. 

I am surprised that the authorities of Worcester Co. press such a villianous as 
well as rediculous suit; it does not seam possible that the judge can charge the 
jury to convict a perfectly innocent man under a plainly unconstitutional law; 
if he does, a lunatic asylum is thea place for him; if the jury convicts you it will 
deserve to ba hanged. However much my opinions may differ from yours, on 
any subject, [ should consider mysalt the m2anest of cartaly cusses if my sympa- 
thies were not with you entirely in this warfare against t1¢ basest and most idi- 
otic of statutes. Yours truly, with my best regards to your brave wife.—Eizur 

Wright. 

We congratulate Mr. Heywood on his deliverance from his persecutors, and 
hope he may never again be caught in their net, for though he is sometimes in- 
clined to us2 the Anglo Saxon language rather freely, yet we never imagined he 
really intended to encourage anything lixe obscene literature. His persecutors, 
however, thought differently, just‘as did the ‘‘rigid righteous’? who in this city 
fifty years ago mobbed Dr. Graham for lecturing on physiology, in which useful 
teaching Mr. Heywood is now engaged and is allowed to live on the outside of a 
jail. ‘** Lhe world moves’’—somg, and persecution is on its march to the rear.— 
Boston Investigator. 

Siades of Kaowiton, Parsons, Baldwin and Dunlap where are your mantles 
when your honored Kneeland is being crucified in the persons of the Heywoods! 
They are of saci stuf as, years ago we used to make into Garrisons, Pilsburys, 
Fu sters and Phillip<es; *‘I am in earnest; [ will not retreat; I will be heard’’ is 
their motto. It is a great work Heywood undertakes and it requires a great man 
to bend to the load. He has glorious examples all the way down the ages—zglo- 
rious ages, made glorious for our sake; we cannot pay to the past the debt we 
owe; lat th: preseat and future draw on us. Heywood is fighting for education 
and freedom. Asin the story of John Rogers and his flock of little caildren, ona 
man, on2 woman, and f ur baautiful children, battling for Ideas, now show us 
that domestic ties d> not obseure blazing Truth.—A. H. Wood. 

We kaow Ezra Heywood well; twenty years ago he was editor of the Daily 
Voice, a socialist, spiritualist, labor-reform paper in Boston. He is a man lia- 
ble to be mastered by an idea, which is, perhaps, the best definition we can give 
of a ‘‘fanatic.’” Ue is not in any sense (practically) an immoral man, and what 
is still more strange, his associates and co-workers are not. He thinks the legal 
restrictions of the mail service, and of Sabbath observance are intolerable, and is 
willing to make any sacrifice to break them down. We differ with him very de- 
cidedly on these matt rs, yet we respect his sincerity, and good old Yankee de- 
termination to push his thought to the extreme verge of solution. But for such 
men we would all be slayes to-day, the born thralls of some feudal chief, with 
braxs collars on our necks =R. M. Le Poor, Editor Fitchburg Tribune. 

Mrs. ‘ieywood spoke frankly, freely, fearlessly, the most true ard sacred 
thoughts of a mind rure as the driven snow upon the mountain tops; sheis doing 
a muea needed work which most of us have not the courage to undertake; but we 
snould be doubly false to truth and ourselves did we deny her in this hour of 
need. Whether it bo wise, as the world measures wisdom, for her to thus expose 
herself to misconstruction aad crucifixion is for her to decide. We have no choice 
but t» give her the mead of our sineere admiration, and such assistance as is ours 
to bestow. In such an hour criticisms upon the ‘methods’? are wholly out of 
place. She isa pionger ina way where weall must follow if we would reach 
the respleadent heights of purity and truth. Our children and children’s chil- 
dren are calling from out the grey light of the Future for us to do our duty in 
this hour.—L. C. Walker in Lucifer, Vailey Falis, Kansas. 

Locking a m+n up for permitting his wife to express her views in public on a 
matter of mighty import to herself and other women is a little the most outrage- 
ous piece ot injustice we hate yet scen laid at the door of Massachusetts, since 
the branding-irons and whipping-posts of the Puritans were abandoned as a 

2ans of converting the Quakers, and since ‘witches’ were slowly pressed to 
death in Salem ander stones. . . The case was postponed several times; the dis- 
trict attorney tried to extort a promise from [Isywood that ho will cease mailing 
objectionable matter, but without avail. At last the indictment is quashed by 


54 FREE SPEECH. 


Judge Pitman. Heywood is fighting for a great purpose. It is nothing less 
than Free Speech. Of course we rejoice, and so should every right thinking per- 
son, whenever he gains a victory In the matter of P.rsonal Rights against the 
tyranny of society and its laws this Princetcn Reformer is divinely obstinate.— 
Winsted (Cann.) Press. ; 

Mr. Heywood may be wrong in his morals, but the moralists should be left to 
fight i¢ out with him in the realm of morals, Have they no cause against him 
no newsrapers, churches, or money? Ave they so weak that they have no alter- 
native but the brute force of the Law? The moment they bring in Law for this 
purpose they touch fire. Everything else sinks into insignifiance in a moment. 
We see the old church bringing in the rack and fire of the Inquisition, because 
its arguments fail. It becomes at once a question of religious and moral liberty 
—of free speech, free press and free mails in the realm of morals, and of FREE 
MEN in this ‘‘land of liberty!’? Every Liberal who don’t feel the touch of the old 
fire on this i-sue is no Liberal, Republican, Patriot or true American. Hon. 
Elizur Wright sees the issue at once and has taken the field again. He nobly 
became Mr. Lieywood’s bail. The curse of Liberty and Humanity will rest upon 
every recreant League, every traitorous Liberal, who does not sustain our old 
hero in this fight.—T. B. Wakeman, Pres’t National Liberal League. 

Mrs. Hes wood appealed to the press and used it so far as she could, to make known 
to readers her wrongs; she argued agvinst the absurd, villait.ous statutes which robbed 
her children of their father, herself of her husband, edi married women of their rights 
anid libertics in the most sacred of all relations; she was arguing, remonstrating with 
them against the cruel injustice to which she had been once subjected and now again 
was suffering frem, at (he hands of the minions of the U. S. Government whose great 
declared purpose is to secure the blessings of liberty to the people; her home in the 
heart cf freedom-loving Massachusctts had been invaded; her innocent husband, upon 
whom she relied for assistance in supporting herself and her children, had been ruth- 
lessly seized by the notorious Anthony Comsteck on charges instigated by himself, 
earried Goff and my risoned in a distant city. Why? why? is this uwful caiamity upon 
her, her babe and young children? She finds the cause of it in a statute prohibiting 
the publication ot anything designed or intended for the prevention of concepjion,—a 
statute initiated at the solicitation of Comstock and other like-minded supporters of 
his Vice Society. It is not at all surprising (her home having been twice broken up 
by this pioas, virtuous Comstock) that she should attempt to argue and to reason on 
the propriety and the right of any persons, legislators ov clergymen or professed vice- 
suppressors, to enact such a statute, She finds in the Preamble: f the Constitution of 
Massachusetts, that the purpose of governinent is to protect the people (including her- 
selt and ali other women) in “enjoying with safety and tranquility their natural 
rights,” The process of conception; is that a natural right, or an artificial right, cr 
no right at all? Does government conferthe power of generation? Can government 
rightiully enforce it, or restrain it? Is it wonderful, or illegal that an intelligent, hard: 
Working married woman, of Massachusetts, whose home had been desolated and she 
reduced to extreme poverty by officious pretentious vice-suppressors, should inquire, 
whether married women had any and what rights, natural, governmental, artificial or 
otherwise in the matter of conception and generation of children? ... Courage to say 
what cowards and more discreet people only think, has hitherto sent many a righ- 
teous mn to the prison or the stake. [sincerely hope that you will not again be a 
victim to the prejudice, ignorance and mistuken zeal of your persecutors. It is an ig- 
norant, acruel, a self-conceited and barbarous spirit which would tear any man, espe- 
cially a twice-and-thrice persecuted innocent man, like you, from his children and 
home and immure him in prison for publishing his own, or his wife’s honest thoughts. 
Mrs. Heywood was religiously, morally, and legally justifiable in writing and you in 
distvibuting her sentiments upon the enormous outrage that Comstock under the 
forts of law bad then recently perpetrated upon vou and herself and your family; in 
discussing, in her own style, (lor style is a mere mutter of rhetoric and taste, and a 
mun ought not to be punished because his wife hus not studied rhetoric) the Sexual 
Ethics and the Congressional Statutes which hud given opportunity for the perpetra- 
tion of the wrong.—A. E. Giles Esq. 

Mrs. EK. M. F. Denton, T. C. and Mary A. Leland, Josephine R. Stone, M. 
Harman, Lydia Eve Blackstone, Eliza W. Philbrook, James Vincent, Geo. W. 
Carpenter, Albert H. Weld and hundreds of other intelligent judges spoke in 
equally decisive terms; even if grand jurors are legally drawn* what their ver- 

* NOVEL POINTS OF Law. The Practiceof Half a Century, Regarding Grant 
Juries, Culled in Quesiton. In the legal motions argued betore Judge Nelson in the 
case of E. H. Heywood, indicted tor circulating wleged obscene literature through the 
muils, & O'Hearn, indicted for retusing to answer a supervisor’s questions, points 
were raised regarding the drawing & deliberations of grand juries which are both 
novel & important, which, if sustained when taken to a higher court (as they will be 


FREE SPEECTI. 55 


dicts, begotten by vice-society devilism, are worth, as compared with the views 
of competent critics of style, morals and character, readers know; but— 

REPARATION TO INNOCENT CONVICTS.—It must be plain to everyone, clear as the 
sunlight, that the same rule should prevail with respect to the burden of justice which 
the state imposes upou individuals as with respect to the barden of taxation or of mili- 
tury service. As the state exacts a universal military obligation which no individual 
has a right to evade, so, inversely, the individual who enjoys the knowledge o! his 
own innocence has a right to require that the law, to which every one without ex- 
ception has to submit unconditionally without resistance, without objection, shall com- 
mit no offense toward him. If, however, by 2 casual concatenation of circumstances, 
or through erroneous suspicions, or by means of false evidence, more suffering or a 
greater sacrifice is imposed upon one individual than all the others hay to bear, it be- 
comes the unavoidable obligation of the state to make amends to him for the excess- 
ive burden he has to carry. The duty is an obligation in the strongest sense of the 
word, not in the remotest degree 2 mere matter of equity or of humanity or of favor. 
For why does this individuat hay, at the price of his freedom, his honor, his social 
position, his power to make money, h’‘s health and ability to work, of pain and care, 
and pethaps of misery to his family, to appear and make a sacrifice of himself that 
the judicial department cf the state may exercise its function? Why must he suffer 
for the mistake-, even if they are unavoidable mistakes, of the state organs?— Dr. HA. 
Jaques, in Popular Science Monthly. ‘ 

What reparation the authorities of Worcester County, the Legislature of 
Massachusetts, and the United States Government will make for personal injury 
and costly disaster they have allowed vice-society villains to inflict on innocent 
and highly deserving citizens is now the question! ‘I'welve years the ecclesiasti¢ 
blood-hound, Comstock has traversed the States, riding free over all mail routes, 
armed with government power to enter complaints, search houses, seize per- 
sons, raid publishers, and as yet there is no redress! There were Personal Lib- 
erty Bills to protect negro-fugitive slaves; have editors and publishers equal 
rights with chattel-serfs? Shall citéze+slonger be sacrificed to the blood-gorged, 
ecclesiastic Moloch? RatTHER LET US REPEAL OR NULLIFY THE INFAMOUS STATUTES! 


taken in case of conviction), will reverse the practice of half a century, nuke the grand 
jury a responsible body instead of a puppet in the district attorvey’s hands, & thas add 
to the security ot the rights of the citizen. The motions call in ques ion tie present 
method of drawing grand juries, on the ground that it violates, by limiting the num- 
ber of names from which the jurors are drawn, that provision of the Uuitetstates con- 
stitution which secures the accused the right to trial by jury, & deny the right of the 
district attorney to be present in the room of the grand jury during its deliberations 
& balloting. George W. Searle, counsel for O Hearn, & until yesterday noon one of 
the counsel for Heywood, maintained the motions by argument & evidence, He 
claimed that the ‘trial by jury” referred to in the Constitution means trial by jary as 
it originally existed in England, not as it now exists after gradual corruption by con- 
stant judicial encroachments upon it, & that the original form involved the drawing of 
jurors from a box containing the names ot the whole adult male population. It was 
further urged by Mr. Searle that the grand juries in these cases were drawn acecord- 
ing to the form obtaining in the State courts ot the district in violation of the United 
States statute of 1779, which provides a special method of drawing juries in the ab- 
sence of a special order from the court directing thatthe State method be followed— 
an argument which the goverument answered by saying that the venires issued con- 
stituted such a judicial order. S. F, McCleary, city clerk of Boston when the juries 
were drawn, testified that the usual state methods were followed, & Lysander Spoon. 
er’s work, “Trial by Jury,” was put in as evidence. in support of his position regard- 
ing the presence of the district attorney in the grand jury room, Mr Searle quoted a 
decision of the supreme court of Texas, rendered in 1830, in the case of the people vs. 
Rothschild, which stated in positive & unmistakable terms that the presence of the 
district attorney with the gran jury during its deliberations rendere | the results there 
invalid & void; & acharge giveu toa California grand jury within recent years by 
Judge Field, now of the United States Supreme Court, t» the effect that it woul] be 
improper tor it to act before any one except the witnesses to be examined. The court 
overruled the motions on the ground of their great importance, saying that he pre- 
ferred to have a bench of jadges pass upon matters which involved such a revolution 
in legal proceduee. In the Heywood case the prisoner has been abandoned by his 
counsel & will conduct his own defence, a course which his friends have been steadily 
anxious for him to follow. After making affidavit that he was in no way responsible 
for his counsel’s withdrawal, & that he needed time to prepare adequately a case in- 
volving so deeply the liberties of the individual, he was granted a continuance till the 
March term of court. Then, being arruigned, he pleaded ‘‘not guilty” to the indict- 
ment, & was orered to renew his bonds prior to the expiration of the court.—Boston 
Globe. Jan. 2, 1883, 


EVOLUTION, REVOLUTION, 


FREE LABOR, FREE LOVE, ANTIL-DEATH AND TAXES.—Usury 
Rent, Marriace, War, Deatu anp Taxes, being in conflict with the Nature of 
Things, must pass away. Prove all things and hold fast that which is good. 
Know yourself and judge for yourself what is right and best in life. Seek Truth, 
and work out your own Salvation, incarnating Equity, cost what it may. 

USURY—THE GIANT SIN OF THE AGE. The Source of Poverty and Degradation. 
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quitable Distribution. Fortieth Thousand. By E. Il. HEywoop. 10 cents, 

MUTUAL BANKING: Showing how to organize Credit, secure Honest Money, and 
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THE LAW OF POPULATION; Its Consequences and its Bearing upon Human Cone 
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AN OPEN LETTER TO JESUS CHRIST. By D. M. BENNETT, indicted for ‘ blase 
phemy and obscenity ” by Anthony Comstock. A witty, suggestive, and sensible epistle 
not yet answered. 6 cents. 

FROM GENERATION TO REGENERATION. A Plain Guide to Naturalism, by Lois 
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ledge and use of sexual freedom. 25 cents. 

THE PRIEST IN ABSOLUTION, the first number of the ‘‘Holy Cross Series,” is 
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CHASTITY OR OUR SECRET SINS; by Dio Lewis, M.D. This book treats of Rea- 
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gives valuable advice to young men ond women. Conservative in its views, it should be 
read by all radicals; itdiscusses grave questions with candor, ability, intelligence. $1.50. 

MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. A Treatise on Population by RoBperT DALE OWEN. This 
work is one of the first importance, not only as a reply to Malthus, but also as supplying 
to every father and mother of a family the knowledge by which, without injury to 
health or violence to the moral feeling, any further increase which is not desired may 
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THE BLAZING STAR, with an appendix treating of the JEWISH KABBALA. Also 
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dentalism, by WM. B. GREENE. This book fights the battle of Labor Reform in the arena 
of pure metaphysics, on the question of the Human Soul and Human Solidarity; show. 
ing the ‘‘ Darwinian Theory,” as respects the battle for life in human society, to be the 
Philosophy of Civilized Cannibalism, Malthusian Plutocracy, and the worst form of Pruse 
sian Bismarckism. It is a profoundly able work, which scholars and other thinkers will 
find it for their interest to consult. $1.50. 

CUPID’S YOKES: or, Tue Brnoina Forces or Consucan Lire. An Essay 
to consider some moral and physiological phases of Love and Parentage, wherein is age 
serted the natural right and necessity of Sexual Self-Government. It reveals the prin- 
ciples and purposes of the Free Love movement. By E. H. Heywood. This book has 
sent three men and two women to prison; been pronounced ‘‘ obscene” by two State 
Judges, three Juries and five United States Judges; but a half million people, including 
President Hayes and att’y General Devens, declare it NOTOBSCENE. The more it is 
‘* suppressed ” the louder it speaks, proclaiming a new and beneficient Evolution of Lib- 
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PLAIN HOME TALK about the Human System, Habits of Men and Women, Causes 
and Prevention of Disease, our Sexual Relations and Social Nature, embracing MEDI- 
CAL COMMON SENSE, applied to Causes, Prevention, and Cure of Chronic Diseases. 
Private Words for Women; Hints to the Children; Private Words for Men; Impotency 
of Males and Females; the Habits of Men and Women; the Natural Relations of Men 
and Women to each other, Society, Love, Parentage; the Sexual Organs; their Influ- 
ence upon Development, Health, Social Position, and Civilization; History of Marriage 
among all Nations and in all Times; Sexual Immorality; Sexual Moderation; Sexual 
Indifference; Adaptation in Marriage, Mental, Physical, Magnetic and Temperamental; 
Happiness in Marriage; Intermarriage of Relatives. Allin language chaste, plain and 
forcible. By E. B. FOOTE, M. D. 200 Illustrations, 12mo, 935 pages. Over 100,000 
copies sold. Price, $1.50. 

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INSPIRATION, SOCIALISM. 


FREE LAND, FREE MONEY, FREE TRADE AND TRANSIT— 


Cost tak EaurrasLte Lrmir or Price, Persona Lrperty INVIOLABLY 
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makes Usury possible, will Labor and Love be free in right, war cease, and 


exchange become civilization under the banner of Opportunity and Reci- 
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WOMANHOOD—ITS SANCTITIES AND FIDELITIES, by IsaBetta BeecuerR Hooker. This is a 
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WHAT IS FREEDOM? AND WHEN AMI FREE? Being an attempt to put Liberty ona Rational 


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TRUE CIVILIZATION: A subject of Vital and Serious Interest to all people; but Most immediately 
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WHAT IS PROPERTY? By P. J. Proudhon, the great French Socialist. Translated by Benj. R. 
Tucker. A scientific and brilliant literary exposition of Labor Reform, in which the whole Profit 
School of Political Economists is engaged and routed. $3.50. 


THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE, A proposed Sexual Morality based on the Doctrine of Evolution, and 
Recent Discoveries in Medical Science; written with great abllity and fearless purpose, this revolution- 
ary book will deeply Interest students of Sociological tendencies towards Free Love. $2.00. 


THE MILLER-STRICKLAND DEFENCE; Under indictment for ‘‘cohabiting and associating to- 
gether, not being married to each other,’’ argued in person by Leo Miller, before Judge F. M, Crosby 
of Minnesota, to which is added the Decision of the Judge. A masterly exposition of Free Love Ideas, 
this speech profoundly interests every student of Natural Liberty and Social Reform. 20 cents. 


PHYSICAL LIFE OF WOMEN. Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother. By George H. Napheys, 
M. D., member of the Philadelphia Medical Society; Author of the ‘‘Transmission of Life.’? 426 
pages 250,000 copies sold. $1.50. 


Rey. W. H. H. Murray says: “‘It is with sincere gratitude to the author that I give my endorsement 

to the ‘Physical Life of Woman.’ I should rejoice at its introduction among the people until every 

vife 4nd mother in the country and the world had a copy in her possession. The author deserves the 
hanks of every Christian and well-wisher of the race. 


CUPID’S YOKES AND THE HOLY SCRIPTURES CONTRASTED, in a letter from Parker 
.illsbury to Ezra H. Heywoodin Dedham Jail. A faithful exposure of filthy passages in the Bible 
commended to Christians who say physiological knowledge is ‘‘obscene.’* It drags into light, por- 
tions of ‘‘God’s Word”’ which Clergymen dare not read in their own pulpit; and, placing beside them 
the passages in Cupid’s Yokes on which Mr. Heywood was convicted, asks, Which is the obscene 
book? an old abolitionist says ‘‘It is a sockdologer and hits below the belt and between the eyes; it 
will make the Comstock hypocrites howl.’> The Bible must go. 10 censt; 70 cents per dozen. 


PARTURITION WITHOUT PAIN. A Code of Directions for Avoiding most of the Painsand Dangers 
of Child-Bearing. Contents: 1. Healthfulness of Child-Bearing; 2. Dangers of Prevention; 3. Medical 
Opinions as to Escaping Pain; 4. Preparation for Maternity; 5. Exercise During Pregnancy; 6. The 
Sitz Bath and Bathing Gererally; 7. What Food to Kat and What to Avoid; 8. The Mind During 
Pregnancy; 9. The Ailments of Pregnancy and their Remedies; 10. Female Physicians and Anzsthe- 
tics. Every family should have this book. By Dr. M. L. Holbrook. Price, $1.00. 

Its gratuitous circulation should be a recognized part of the Woman Movement.—Index. A work 
whose excellence surpasses Our power to commend.—New York Mail. 


SEXUAL PHYSIOLOGY. A scientific and popular Expostion of the Fundamental principles in 
Sociology, by R. T. Trall, M. D. The great interest now being felt in all subjects relating to human 
development will make this book valuable to every one. Besides the information obtained by its per- 
usal, the bearing of the various subjects treated, in improving and giving direction and value to 
Human Life cannot be over-estimated, This work contains the latest and most important discoy- 
eries in the Anatomy and Physiology of both sexes; explains the origon of Human Life; how and 
when Menstruation; Impregnation, and Conception occur; giving the laws by which the number and 
sex of the offspring are controlled, and valuable information in regard to the begetting and rearing of 
beautifal and healthy children. It should be read by every family. WITH EIGHTY FINE ENGRAVINGS. 
Prof. Wilder, of Cornell University, says it is the best work yet written on the subject. Thirtieth 
Thousand. Price, $1.50. 


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THE WORD, 


A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF REFORM regarding the subjection ot Labor, of Woman 
and the prevalence of War, as unnatural evils induced by false claims to obedience and 
service, favors the Abolition of the State, of Property in Land, of Speculative Income 
and all other means whereby Intrusion acquires wealth and power at the expense of 
Useful people. Since Labor is the Source of Wealth, creating all values equitably vend- 
able, THE WorpD—not by restrictive methods, but through Liberation and Reciprocity— 
seeks the extinction of interest, rent, dividends and profit except as they represent work 
done;the abolition of corporations charging more than cost for values furnished, and the 
repudiation of so-called debts the principal whereof has been paid in the form of inter- 
est. E. H. HEYWOOD, Editor. Terms, 75 cts. yearly. Address The Word, Princeton, Ms, 

THE LABOR QUESTION: What it is, and the True Method of its Solution. Terse, 
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HARD CASH: Treats of the Greenback Delusion, and demands the Abolition of Usury 
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VITAL FORCES; HOW WASTED AND HOW PRESERVED. This book teaches 
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LAND AND LABOR. Their relations in Nature—how violated by Monopoly. Also 
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WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW. The Reproductive Functions in Man 
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FRUITS OF PHILOSOPHY, or the Private Companion of Adult People by CHARLES 
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WILY NOT? A BOOK FOR EVERY WOMAN. ‘The Prize Essay to which the Amer- 
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Is IT 1? A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. A companion to Wuy Nor? a book for 
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THE GREAT STRIKE: Its Relation to Labor, Property and Government. Suggested 
by the memorable events which, originating in the Tyrannous Extortion of Ruilway 
Masters, and the Execution of Eleven Labor Reformers, called ‘‘ Mollie Maguires,” 
June 2st, 1877, culminated in burning the Corporation property in Pittsburg, July 22d, 
following, this essay carefully defines the relative claims of Work and Wealth involved 
in the IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT between Capital and Labor which engages attention 
increasingly the world over. By E. H. HEYwoop. 10 cents. 

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 


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